No, we did not return to Lancaster! This week we spent a few days in Cooperstown and it was peak season. The colors were breathtaking, the rolling mountains stunning, and God’s handiwork glorious. It was all we hoped for and more.
Although we didn’t particularly choose to be there on October 11, we were mindful of the calendar. For eighteen years we have been acutely aware of when Stacey Day falls—the day our daughter went home to beauty that makes the scenes I just described pale; the day that left us with gaping holes in our hearts. But I’m still here, still remembering, still wiping unbidden tears. And God is here—as seen in creation’s beauty and felt in the calm of my heart.
He gave me a special gift this year and I want to share it with you. You may not have lost a daughter (oh, I hope not) but we all lose people we love, who mattered deeply, who left us with memories, sweet and bittersweet. So I share these words that just happened to be next in my reading of Charles Spurgeon.
Suppose that you are a professional gardener, responsible for a garden that is not yours. You take great care of several prize rose bushes. You fertilize, water, prune, and train them. Now that they are blooming in great beauty, you take considerable pride in them.
One morning you come into the garden and find that the best rose has been taken. You are angry and accuse your fellow workers of taking it. They declare their innocence, saying that they had nothing to do with it. But one says, “I saw the Master walking here this morning. I think he took it.”
Is the gardener still angry? No, he immediately says, “I am pleased that my rose’s beauty attracted the master’s attention. That rose was his, and he has taken it. Let him do what seems good.”
It is the same with your loved ones… Thank God that He let you have the pleasure of caring and tending for them while they were here. Thank Him that as He gave, He Himself has taken.*
God is good.
*Beside Still Waters, Charles Spurgeon, Lest You Sorrow, 1 Thessalonians 4:13
BARBARA HIGBY 