The Mix of Life

Yesterday morning I had an interesting confluence of two things. I was driving to work on my massive ten minute commute. One of the great things about working at WCU is the drive. It's always the same road, Highway 107, but you never know what the scenery will be. You go up some in elevation and through Catamount Gap, a place blasted through the side of a mountain years ago to make a way for the road. There's a curve there where you can't see far ahead with rock walls on both sides. But then you come through and see the Cullowhee valley below you and many of the buildings of main campus with the mountains behind them. It's a beautiful sight.  In the spring you may have wildflowers. In the summer you get clear blue sky and many layers of mountain views. In the fall you get the quilt of many colors covering the hills. In the winter you may see a dusting of snow and icicles covering the walls of rock. Sometimes, you come through the gap and can barely see the trees lining the road for the fog.

This morning, it was a gorgeous sight. I came through the gap and it was a bright and clear morning. There was a layer of bright white cloud just high enough to see the campus but low enough to still see the tops of the nearby mountains. My heart praised God for the beauty of what he has made in this place and allowing me to see it. 

But then, I looked over on the side of the road. There was a dead racoon. Very stiff, and (pardon the image) not quite all in one piece. Thankfully I had the windows rolled up and the fan off but the memory of smells from similar encounters came to mind vividly. It was a ugly, disgusting sight and I was glad it was over quickly. 

Life is this way. We sometimes get bursts of beauty, goodness, and truth. We get a small glimpse at the how-it-should-be world, a world without the curse of sin and death. We give and receive kindness and grace. We experience the beauty of holiness. We share good meals and hearty laughter with friends and family.

But sometimes not. Sometimes we get the mundane of aligning spreadsheet columns, sweeping the same floors, patching the same clothes. We must try again to fix the leak in the roof. And sometimes we must face the ugliness of death. The beeping machines, endless pills, people coming and going in a blur. 

And sometimes we have both of those at the same time. When a saint is dying, there is the ugliness of the body giving way, but there is often the beauty of love, care, and community. Even more, there is hope for the beauty, goodness, and truth of the world that is to come. 

We see it in small things also. Last night I spent two hours replacing a broken part in my refrigerator. It was frustrating to have a fridge that didn't work correctly, and then to contort myself to get at some of the screws, plus having to figure out (with lots of help from YouTube and a friend) how to go about replacing it. But, I managed and I (hopefully) now have a working fridge again!

Let me encourage you in this. Be glad for those times of beauty, goodness, and truth. They are from the Lord and his kindness and grace. They show his power, wisdom, beauty, and love for us. We rightly revel in them.

But those times of the mundane, sorrow, pain, and death are also ours. They remind us of our sin and that we are truly but dust. The Lord's curse and judgment are heavy, because our sin is a heavy, deadly thing. Be reminded to cry out for the Lord's mercy. He is slow to anger and will hear you. We might pray like the writer of Psalm 90:

¹² So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
¹³ Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Image Source: Photo by Richard Wilson from Pexels