Sometimes I just to have to settle with mystery. I have to settle my mind and heart and say, "God is God and there are things I will never understand." In a world that is so based on the scientific mindset where no mystery is left uncovered, where the Mythbusters half to take everything to the test, it is hard to say, "I don't know." But I have to. As a twenty-something living in a world of change, it is easy to look around and have a million and one questions flood in my skull. Overwhelmed and sometimes discouraged, I look to God and ask (or yell) "What is going on?" Death, evil, sin, pain, my car, and gas prices all seem to cause more questions than answers. Yet sometimes God asks me to wait, to trust. Not even sometimes, most of the times. Mystery. I don't like it. But that's why He is God and I am clay given the breath of life from the Father.

Yesterday my wife and I had the privilege to spend an hour and a half catching up with one of my best friend's from high school and his wife. It was so good for my wife and I. We were encouraged and blessed. Though, I do feel bad sometimes because Dan and I tend to do all the talking while our wives smile and nod. Either way, it was something that I know we needed. Yet, at the same time I couldn't help walking away with a small sense of disappointment. It wasn't disappointment from the conversation, but because it opened my eyes to a reality that I have a hard time accepting. That reality being the fact that the past where so many of my fondest memories reside will never be here again. Sure, there will be more good times. But I naively assumed somewhere in the back of my mined that one day i would find myself back in New York with my family and everyone that I loved so dearly would be there with me. We would share all the same good times at the same places. The only difference is that we would have our wives with us who would surely add so much. Now, this wasn't a blatant thought in  my head. But I realized that the idea was there. And every time I went home, I would walk away so disappointed because things weren't the same. I would go expecting it to be and leave homesick for a home that only existed six years ago. I am reminded of the truth in these situations, though, about our God. Well, about our God and about me. The past is in the past. It cannot be changed and it will never be the same. The future is known only to God and is not available to me for anything but planning and worrying. I am called to live in the here an now. Right now is the only moment I have to live exactly as God has called me to. I can't dwell in the past or live in the future without missing out on reality as it is. Hopefully I can learn this and remember this when times like this happen again.

“I learned that he that would be a hero will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work is sure of his manhood.” George MacDonald, Phantastes