LIFE (?) TRIP?

In less than sixteen hours, twenty-six people will converge on our church at 0230, to load up for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. God reminded me this morning that one year ago, my family and I were on a different trip. My mother-in-law, Grace, was dying. We had gone to say our final "good-bye's". To me, that trip represented DEATH, but God taught me something during the planning of that trip that I have already shared in another blog, but want to share again.

In the process of planning all the details for that trip, and in thinking about my feelings for Grace---what a wonderful woman she was; what an influence she had been in the lives of so many people; how she cared for, and mentored hundreds, if not thousands as a teacher, mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt; and how it didn't seem at all fair that she had to die the way she did---God interrupted all those thoughts and said, "I'm not done yet". What?!? When we have done all that we know to do, God is not done yet. When we have prayed every prayer we know how to pray, and still, it seems as though those prayers have not been answered, God is not done yet. When all possible hope is gone, God is not done yet. When death is inevitable, God is not done yet. God is not done yet.

In planning all the details of this trip to the Dominican Republic, and getting all the last-minute items taken care of, and things packed, God reminded me of that trip a year ago and that He was "not done yet". I don't know if God is trying to tell me that no matter what we see happen on this trip, He's "not done yet" or if He was trying to tell me something else. For me, that was a DEATH trip. Maybe God was trying to tell me that this would be a LIFE trip. That trip brought physical death; maybe this trip will bring LIFE. His LIFE. ETERNAL LIFE. That is my hope. That is my prayer. Out of death springs life.