Is that death in the mirror?

So I took a walk this evening and it didn't take long before I began to notice the things around me.  I could feel the warm air on my skin and yet the heat of the day had subsided. As I walked past our neighbor's house, I was drawn to a pine cone sitting on the edge of their yard.  I picked it up and began to examine it... intricate layers, precise and predictable, becoming less organized and polished as it became larger and the tip bent and scraped by the ravages of time and nature. Then the pecan that lay in the gutter crushed by the passing cars, the dry fallen leaves on the sidewalk twisted and crumpled. The delicate balance of our own existence mirrored in the substance of nature. We believe nature to be so powerful, so resilient, just like we think our lives and our bodies are....but truly nature is fragile, mercurial and unpredictable, just like our lives. We expect to experience pattern and course to nature...winter, spring, summer, fall; and to life...birth, childhood, coming of age,  love, marriage, children, grandchildren, death, but these are not guarantees.  Nature can be fickle, it can fool us and quickly, unexpectedly become violent and ravenous.  Life is the same, there are no promises in life, none.

So my thoughts turned to God and to faith.  I trudged up the hill beginning to break a sweat and I thought, why is it through all of this I still have faith, that I still love my God, that I am confident that my son is basking in the joy of eternal life, that upon death I too will pass to the glory of heaven? Hebrews 11:1 states, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."   Life is not meant to be perfect, it's not meant to be free from sorrow; to the contrary, life's very nature is to be temporary and rife with conflict.  Perhaps that is what makes the thought of heaven so captivating. The great paradox of life is that it is married to death, full of joy and celebration and equally full of grieving and sorrow, expectation and hope are counterbalanced by stolen dreams and dispair.  If we allow our fears, our sorrows and uncertainies to get in the way of living, of experiencing joy and seeing the unique beauty of the world, then we've lost more than death can ever take from us.