As we’ve struggled through the last several days, suffering with grief and unbelief over the sudden death of my cousins, we’ve been faced with so many decisions.
It’s amazing how difficult it can be to even think rationally, much less make a good decision, when your mind is really elsewhere. And we didn’t even have to make the really difficult decisions about where to bury my cousins or what the service should be like. I can’t even imagine the difficulty of those decisions for all of the immediate family. I know God is just giving them strength beyond belief right now.
Matt and I were simply struggling with the decision of staying for the funeral or not. Even though there really wasn’t a decision to be made (I mean, of course we should stay)…there were several days between my cousins’ deaths and the day of the funeral. That ended up being a lot of missed days of work for Matt, not to mention all of the other loose ends that hadn’t been tied up before we left home in such a rush. Could we handle it financially? Should we go home so he could work a day and a half, and then come back? (With these gas prices?!)
We originally assumed that the funeral would be in Colorado where the couple had been living, so we didn’t think it would really be an option for us to go. It was then decided to bury them here in Kansas. As we wrestled back and forth with our decision to stay, someone finally said,
“Laura, how will you feel about your decision a few years from now? When you look back on this time and think about how you went home and missed the funeral…or about how you stayed and were surrounded by family…what will you feel?”
Mm. What is three days of missed work in the big picture? Isn’t God going to just totally take care of us anyway? Isn’t family more important? Wouldn’t we for sure look back with regret that we felt like we just couldn’t stay away from home any longer? What’s really important? (Probably not the over-due library book waiting for me at home.)
I was really grateful for the wise words about making a decision. I plan on remembering that for many decisions of my future. Even the small ones.
Step back from the situation and ask yourself, “How will I feel about this decision in a few years? Will I have regrets? Will I feel like I did the right thing? What is truly important?”
If I’ve learned anything in the past few days, it’s that life is short…and can end unexpectedly. Our life is a vapor. This world is not our home.
It is just so important to focus on what really matters.
———————————————————–
More Works for me Wednesday here.
