The Story of a Life

Her skin is soft and pink. Her eyes are closed gently as she sleeps in her mother's arms. She is brand new and has no idea what kind of world she has been born into. She does not know that the bearded man and tired woman who are looking at her and smiling are the ones who she owes her very life to. She is blissfully ignorant of what they have gone through to make her comfortable.

Her eyes open and she smiles at them, still leaning over her bed as they tuck her in at night. Her mother is so tired looking, but she doesn't say a word. Her father looks on at his daughter admiringly. She smiles and laughs and tries to get out of the bed and play, but they stop her and make her go to sleep.

When she wakes up, she is terrified. First day of school. First day away from here mother and father. First day. First day. First day. She shivers into her clothes with her mother's aid, and then stands at the bus stop with her father. Her mother is feeling ill, or she would be there to. Then there is the monster, the giant yellow bus, ready to swallow her whole. She closes her eyes as her father sets her up on the first step of the bus, because she is too short to get up there herself.

Her eyes open to behold the scene that she has seen so many times before her. The back of a boy's head, the curly-haired, annoying boy who has sat in front of her for the entire semester. She barely listens as the teacher drones on. She can't wait to get out of school and go hang out with her friends at the pool for her best friend's 12^th birthday party. She doesn't like school, she never has, and now she really isn't so sure she likes home either. The only place she can find happiness was with her friends. She lays her head down on her desk to continue her during-school nap.

When she wakes up, she still has tears in her eye. She has been crying all night. How could he leave her like that? The boy she has loved since last summer, and he had just left her, running off with one of her least favorite people in the world. Everyone had told her that dating was the normal thing to do, but nobody told her that her heart would ache this bad when it was over. Nobody should have to suffer like that, not at 16. It just isn't fair. Her mother is stroking her hair, telling her it will be alright, that he just wasn't the boy for her, that there are other fish in the sea. Now she understands why her father has always told her that dating would get her hurt. He had been right all this time. She closes her eyes to the world, trying to block out the pain.

Her heart is beating so fast. She opens her eyes at last, knowing that if she doesn't she will trip down the isle, and she can barely walk in that ridiculous white dress anyway. Her father stands beside her, smiling, but teary-eyed. She places her hand on his arm, knowing that his strong arm would hold her up, it always had. The doors open before her and she steps through, barley listening to the song that they are playing for her. She sees him, the boy with the curly-hair, the stupid, annoying one, the one that now is all she can see, his shining, happy face. Any feeling for anyone else leaves her as her father places her hand in his. As her father backs away, she can hear his voice crack, and her mother's unsuppressed sniffles reach her ears. For a moment, she is terrified, but then, when her groom leans forward to kiss her, and she closes her eyes and leans forward to kiss him, she forgets everything else.

When she pulls away and opens her eyes, she smiles into the face of her husband, and then looks down into the sweet, innocent face of her baby. His little face radiates peace and serenity. He is sleeping blissfully in her arms. Her heart has never been so full. She can barely contain herself, she wants to kiss the child until the end of time. She can see his father's nose and mouth on his sweet little face. She closes her eyes and leans back in her bed, tired and happy.

She is awakened by little fingers touching her face. She opens her eyes to see her son smiling down at her, sitting beside her in the bed. She smiles, tired, but happy. Her swollen belly makes it hard for her to get out of bed. Any day now and her daughter will be born. Her husband gets up to help her into the bathroom, his curly hair even messier than usual, but she doesn't mind, she loves it that way. She steps in the bathroom and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She is no longer the young girl hanging out all the time with her friends. She has moved into motherhood, and it has given her face a new beauty. A tired, exhausted, exasperated, beauty. The kind of beauty that someone can only get when they have given every part of themselves to someone else. She closes her eyes and gently begins to wash her face.

When she opens them, she wants to scream from frustration. One child is in trouble, another is about to be, and the third just will not stop crying, even though there is nothing wrong with her. No yelling, she must remember that, no yelling, that only makes things worse. She picks up her oldest son and carries him to the couch, giving him a long time-out. She takes her oldest daughter to her bed for the millionth time and tells her it's nap-time, and not to get back up. She picks up her youngest daughter and tries to get her to calm down, she can't be hungry, she just ate. Her diaper is clean. She must be tired, but she just won't sleep. Sleep. That's all that the tired mother really wants, is just a long sleep. She closes her eyes as she is rocking her baby and remembers how happy she was when her baby was born.

When she opens her eyes, the baby is not so little anymore. She looks at her mother with terrified eyes as she sees the school bus coming up the hill, taking her away for the first time. Hugging her baby girl, she wonders if perhaps her father had felt the same way when he had first sent her away to school. This was the third time she was doing it, and it was not any less painful than the first. Lifting the child onto the school bus, she hugs her baby one last time and then the doors swing shut. As the bus pulls away, she closes her eyes to the sight of her youngest child being taken away from her.

Tears blind her when she opens her eyes again. Her mother's face fills her vision as she clutches desperately to her hand. Her eyes are swollen and her head hurts from crying. She can feel her mother's gentle hands stroke her face, as they had done so many times when she was little. She lays her head on her mother's chest, listening to her fading heart beat. Her fingers stroke the soft graying hair of her mother's head. Saying goodbye was even harder than sending her own children to school everyday. Even harder than walking away from her family with her husband. Harder than anything she had ever had to do. She closed her eyes, knowing that she had to say goodbye.

Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of the dirt hitting her father's coffin is the most terrible sound she has ever heard. She opens her eyes and looks down in the pit where they had put his body. She can still remember the light that would come into his eyes when his grandchildren would stroke his graying beard, when he had watched his grandson graduate middle school, when he had seen his wife laugh. Now there was no light in his eyes, no life in his body. He had gone to his Eternal Home, mere weeks after his wife. Slowly, the dirt covers his coffin, marking his final resting place. She wraps her arms around her husband, clinging to him, knowing that her father had trusted him to take care of her, and now so must she. She closes her eyes and buries her face in his coat, crying.

She pulls away, laughing. She opens her eyes and look up at her beloved husband. They have been dancing for so long, her feet ache, her body screams for a rest, but she will not heed them. She loves dancing with her husband. Her small hands in his strong ones, like they had always been, as he leads her around the dance floor, tripping over his own feet sometimes, but dancing and laughing all the same. He twirls her around until she is dizzy, which doesn't take very long anymore. Her skirt swishes and twirls with her. She laughs and grabs his arm as she starts to tip over. She looks up into his eyes, still shining and smiling as ever. She barely notices that the curls on his head are beginning to gray, that there are small wrinkles around his eyes, that he is squinting a bit as if things were blurry. All she can see is the man that she loves. Her eyes close and she leans forward to kiss him.

She opens her eyes and smiles as her husband walks away and gets in the old, beat up car. Away to work for the day. She walks back into the house where her son is trying to bake a cake. He had insisted to make his own cake for his 18th birthday. Her children are all getting so old. Only two are still in school. This was going to be the last she sees of her son for a while, he had enlisted in the army and was going to leave soon. She hugs him, squeezing him tightly, remembering when he has just been a tiny child, and she would have had to hold him up to hug him like this. He hugs her back, and she closes her eyes, praying that God would protect him when he leaves.

When her eyes open, she is at her youngest daughter's highschool graduation. She watches her daughter walk across the stage and get handed her diploma. She is so proud of her. She still remembers the frightened little girl on her first day of school. Sitting beside her are her husband and her other daughter, who is leaning on her mother's arm, smiling and crying. Her son is still away in another country, fighting for the lives of those he loves. Looking around at the faces of those she loves, she wonders how time could have passed so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that she had walked across the stage to receive her diploma. How had life gotten away from her? She sighs and closes her tired eyes as the next person receives their diploma. She has only come to see her daughter, and now she is exhausted.

She opens her eyes to see her oldest daughter, dressed all in white, her face as radiant as the sun. Tears spring into her eyes as she helps everybody in the wedding party to find their bouquets. She checks her own appearance in the mirror, just to make sure that she looks alright, and realizes that her hair is becoming a soft, beautiful shade of silver. Not all of her hair has changed, but large parts of it. The wrinkles on her face are becoming more prominent, and there seems to be nothing she can do to hide them anymore. She does not look like the blushing bride that she once was, as her daughter is now, and for a moment, the thought scares her. But then she remembers that growing old with those she loves in not such a bad thing after all, it is how God intended things to be, and she can most certainly live with that. She hands her daughter her veil, and helps to pin it on. Her husband comes in and takes his once young bride with him. The blinding lights pointing her direction make her close her eyes against the glare.

She shades her eyes so she can open them again, and looks over the ocean waves. This is the view that she had so often seen as a child, and now she was seeing it again, only this time, it was because she was here to visit her son. He was finally home, and living in her parent's old home. It was painful to know that her mother and father could not see their first great-grandchild, but it was comforting to know that they were in a better place. Beside her stands her daughter-in-law, her son's wife, holding her sweet baby boy. Looking into the child's eyes, the new grandmother remembers looking into her son's eyes for the first time, and knows that the mother of her grandchild must be feeling that same great joy that she had felt, so many years ago. She closes her eyes, which are becoming strained by the harsh glare of the sun.

She opens them to a joyous scene. Her whole family is together again. Her husband sits beside her on the couch, holding her hand as he had done for so many years. Her three children, who are not so young anymore, are talking and laughing, sitting with their spouses. Her grandchildren play together happily on the floor, the oldest taking charge of the game. So much joy, so much happiness. She never wants it to end. Everyone she loves most in the world is around her. The only reason she would ever want to leave is if they could all go to heaven together, right then. The thought of heaven makes her smile. That is where she wanted to be one day, where she knew she would be. She closes her eyes and leans her head on her husband's arm, thinking about heaven.

Heaven was not where she wanted him to go, not without her. She opens her eyes, even though she still can barely see. Even with her glasses, her tears make it impossible to see his sleeping face. As she wipes her tears away, more come. She finally is able to control herself enough to look once more at his kind face, to stare at his thin, gray curls, the curls that she had once called stupid and ridiculous. Now all she wants is to touch his curls, to hold his face in her hands, to kiss his cold lips, to take his hands in hers, to hold them tight, just as she had done the day that her father had placed their hands together for the first time. And now he was gone. She knows she would see him again one day, one beautiful day in heaven, when they would spend eternity worshiping God together, where nobody would ever die again. She closes her eyes as tears spill down her wrinkled cheeks, and she prays that God would take her soon.

When she opens her eyes, she peers out of her heavy lids at a dim hospital room. Her children and grandchildren sit in the room around her, teary-eyed and sad. She smiles weakly at them and tries to tell them not to cry for her, because she is happy, she is going to go to her heavenly home soon, but she cannot seem to speak. Her voice will not obey her commands. So instead she looks around at her children's faces. They, like her, have begun to show the signs of aging. Her son has gray hair in his beard. Her oldest daughter's face has begun to become wrinkled. Her youngest daughter even, has begun to look weary and not so young anymore. Her youngest daughter's children are school age now, so even she has experienced watching her babies grow up. But their mother still sees the sweet, innocent little children they once were in their faces. She sees them through the filter of a mother's love. She sees her growing grandchildren, some of them timid, young, and still learning their alphabets, others much older, stronger, learning to be wise young Christians. And that is what fills her heart with the most joy. She knows they will all see each other again one day, in Paradise. She had taught her children in the way they should go, and now that they are getting older, they have not departed from it. And now they are teaching their children the same way. Coldness creeps into her limbs as she kisses each of those around her farewell. As she closes her eyes upon the world for the last time, she remembers the good life that the Lord has given her, and she thanks Him for it. Her eyes close. She will open them on earth no more.

Each life is special in the eyes of God. He formed us in our mother's wombs, he knew us each by name before we even knew ourselves. 

We are made in His image, and that is a very special thing. He created us like Him, so it only makes sense that we should strive to become like Him.

In all that we do, we should give honor and glory to the one who made us. 

He loves us more than a mother loves her children, more than a wife loves her husband. He loves us so much that he was willing to give up his *only child* so that we could be with Him one day in Heaven.

So if He loves us that much, even before we were born, before we could give Him anything in return, it only makes sense that we give Him everything back. Our love for brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren, should look like hate compared to how much we love our God.

And that's saying something, because we are made in His image, we love like He does, we love a lot.

Remember, next time you start to think about how depressing your life is, think about how much He loves you. That you are made in the image of the God of the Universe. That everything in your life should belong to Him. And if you remember that, I promise you, your problems will cease to bother you, because in the end, they don't matter. 

Only love remains.

Cheers!