On Ash Wednesday I am supposed to say that dying is good news. Not like this. Death came like it does every year, but this year we could only stand behind double paned windows and wave at grandparents who were trying to remember our names. We crossed our fingers and did the math.
J. Todd Billings, in his new book, helps us ponder how we might live well even though we live in the full knowledge that this life, as we know it, will inevitably end.
On Sunday, January 26, Kobe Bryant, his thirteen-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash. The deaths sent shockwaves through the NBA, Los Angeles, and the world at large.
The consolation of the sufferer is the fact that God does not abandon the human in her hour of most desperate need.
We were too young for something like this. Only 22 years old, and we had buried our own child.
Reflecting on those moments, I think I experienced what some call the “already-not yet,” the wonderful truth and the hard heartache of the Easter season.
