Always before my Father in Heaven

I talked with my ever-patient husband.  I stayed up very late.  I was exhausted.  I read in bed to make my eyelids heavy.  I did all the things I could do to prepare my body to drop into an exhausted slumber.  And yet I tossed and turned.  

Yesterday Lily lost a friend.  The little pixie on the left in the picture below is no longer with us.  This summer, she and Lily got into their first car accident together just moments after this picture was taken.  They ran their Jeep into the neighbors' tree.  Fortunately parents were there to immediately rectify the situation and Barbie Jeeps don't go that fast.    

Yesterday, the situation (not a car accident, a health situation) wasn't so easy to rectify.

How could I sleep with the lack of surety that the little one on the right, my little one, would wake up?  And lack of surety that I would wake up?  We have no guarantees here from one breath to the next.  None.  How could I sleep when such a horrible thing has happened?  When friends are aching and hurting beyond words?  

So I prayed.  What else does one do?  And after a time, the Lord brought this verse to mind:

See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in Heaven. (Matthew 18:10)

In the context of this passage, Christ is telling his disciples to be like little children, to "suffer the little children to come unto me."  He's explaining how much we can learn from our little tykes and exactly how valuable they are.  They are, in fact, so valuable that their angels are always before the face of God.  That was and is an indescribable comfort to me.  

He knew.  He knows.  His plan.  The question is can I rest in that?  Is He big enough to know better than me?  Can I remove myself from the throne of my life, that imaginary seat where I pretend I'm in control, where I pretend know best, where I pretend get to choose?  Can I step down, bend my knee, bow before Him, and allow Him His rightful seat, the seat He, in reality, holds whether I choose to acknowledge it or not?  

I loved her.  I loved all that she would have become.  I love her family.  He loves her and them more.  

I can't stay on bended knee before that throne, not today.  I will rise slowly and crawl into the lap of my God.  I will curl up and rest in His loving arms.  Rest in His control over life.  Find comfort in the fact that He loved her in indescribable ways.  That He loves me and my family too beyond what we could ever understand.  And I will beg for Him to pour His comfort and grace out on her family.  Praise Him that His lap is big enough for us all.

And I will thank Him that I and my family had the privilege of knowing her.  What a gift.  What an indescribable gift.