JUST DO

Written after the death of a dear friend 

 

I’ve had a terrible week. The worst one I’ve had in a long time. I’ve cried, I’ve been angry, I’ve been confused, and I’ve grieved. I’ve yelled at God and I’ve questioned his plan. I’ve asked him over and over…why?

    As I dragged myself through the week, I couldn’t get up the gumption to pack, or even make a list of what we needed, for our planned camping trip. I wanted to cancel it, but I didn’t want to add ‘disappoint my son” to the list of things that made this an awful week.... So on Friday, a day later than planned, we packed up the camper and headed north.

    It took a few hours for the quiet peacefulness of the outdoors, of nature doing everything it was meant to do, to begin to ease my mind and heart. We walked down a path in the woods that I’ve walked dozens of times over the years, and I listened. I really listened. Bullfrogs croaked, birds sang, a single woodpecker drummed on a tree. Insects buzzed around my head. The grass rustled as some unseen creature scuttled out of sight. Something plopped into the water. None of those creatures question why they do what they do. They just do.

    I turned over a rotted log. It was teeming with insects and salamanders. They busily went about their job of reclaiming the dead tree. They don’t question why the tree had to die. They don’t wonder why its death is vital to their life, or why they spend their short existence burrowing in its depths. They just do.

    Trees die in the fall only to bloom again in the spring because it is their season to do so. In their season flowers bloom, spreading a rainbow of color through the woods. And when their season is finished, their color fades and they wither and die. They don’t angrily ask why their time was so short. They don’t beg for more time. They just do.

    There are so many things in life that I don’t understand. There are so many times when I can find no reason, no good, in what happens around me. So much is out of my control. But life isn’t always for us to understand or to find reason. It isn’t for us to control. There is a season a time and a purpose for everything. We may not understand it, and we may not always like the season we are in, but it is our season to be lived until the next.

    This is your season. It may last for a day or for years. You can revel in it or pray for the next one. You can question it. But it is your season to live. Just do.

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