tim pezzelle
2011-03
do strange, wonderful things ever happen to you? maybe the better question is whether we really catch those strange, wonderful moments and see them for what they are. my days go by, one page at a time, and i know that i've often been too preoccupied with lesser things to stop and appreciate how the plot is unfolding. but then there are times when God simply smacks me over the head with His story line. here is one small instance....
i've never been a big fan of "the dark". i wouldn't go so far as to say that i'm "afraid" of the dark; i just don't prefer it. sherry welcomed night. she saw it as a part of the big picture of God's design - day and night. work and rest. rest is the key word - shabat or sabbath. for sherry, entering into God's shabat was part of a daily cycle. so night would come, the pace would slow, the noise would soften.... balance would begin to return... and she would embrace this transition as a gift from God.
on the other hand (especially in the last eighteen months), i have dreaded the fading of day's light. i can only suppose that, for me, it's something like the way a fighter feels when the last minute of the last round comes. he knows he's behind on points and there isn't much time left to pull out a victory. each tick of the clock draws him closer to defeat. when the bell rings, all hope for victory vanishes.
i would, nightly, lament the dark and the end of the day, and sherry would remind me that there is a time for rest. she would paint for me with words her picture of God's rest.... and that was a good thing.... a wonderful thing....
and then she left. God called her to His perfect, eternal rest.
and then night came. and day.... and another night.... and no words of reminder. i shouldn't have needed them. i shouldn't have grown dependent upon them. and another night....
but God is so good. one night, as i'm sitting on the side of the bed i notice the edge of a piece of paper that had fallen onto the floor behind my night stand. i recognized this as a page from one of sherry's praying in color journals and picked it up. here, in sherry's handwriting, is what it says:
"I will praise the Lord who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because HE is at my right hand, i will not be shaken." PS 16:7-8
i don't know when she wrote it..... i don't know when she put it on the night stand.... i don't know why she hadn't commented about it..... she knew me. she knew my heart. she knew what i needed. maybe she knew she might not be here to remind me - i don't know.
i count it as one of those strange, wonderful things. although the climb up the stairs at the end of each day can feel like a thousand mile march, i am reminded that rest is near.... i am reminded that God is Sovereign over day and night.... i am reminded that in all things, He provides what is needed - family, friends, work, rest, hope, help.... and little notes from tender hearts that bring me back to His truths.
thank you sherry, good night!
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