Closure

For the past 5 1/2 years we have waited, searched, and longed for closure. We thought that a conviction would bring that closure into our lives. Today as I heard the news I had believed would give me the peace and closure I have searched for I found myself basically unchanged. I don't know if I will ever feel closure in this lifetime. I do know that I will never be able to fully accept or understand the events that brought me and so many others to the place that we are today. Over and over again I have found myself broken and asking why. Why did this devistation come into our lives?

I know that God is in control and has been through all of this. He has walked beside us guiding us through the darkness. He has carried us when we have been too exhausted to walk on our own. He has cradled us in His arms when we have been broken. He has caught every tear we have cried and has given us the strength and courage to face each day.

Although we will never understand, never know why, and never be the same again, we will make it through each day with the help of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In his sermon How God Uses Suffering, John MacArthur says,

"When you go through the sufferings of life God has a purpose. His purpose is to manifest the character of your spiritual life to everybody around you and to you as well. His purpose is to humble you because of His multitude of blessings poured out upon you and His purpose is to draw you into the intimacy of His glorious presence."

I pray that we have lived a life worthy of the call God has placed on our lives. It is my desire to show the love of Christ to those around me. I know that I fall short of that goal everyday because if I had reached that place of intimacy and perfection my work here on earth would be done and I would be seated at the feet of Jesus with those who have already gone before us.

I searched through some old Bible studies and found notes listing these verses as being Thad's favorites. He was a man that radiated Jesus in everything he did and I am thankful and proud that I was blessed to have known him and benefit from his teaching. I think these verses speak perfectly about the place we find ourselves and I know that Thad would want us to live and cling to these verses.

Philippians 3:10-12

10[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [[a]which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]11That if possible I may attain to the [[b]spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].


12Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.  AMP


John 10:10

10The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it [a]overflows). AMP

In loving memory of Thad John Glenn Reynolds