In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
(John 14:2)

In 1995 I lived in an apartment complex upstairs in front of the pool. Across from the courtyard lived an elderly man. About 11:00 each night he would come out in his bathrobe and bathing suit to swim. He was tanned, muscular and seemed well-fit. One morning when I woke up and looked out my living room window I saw police-tape around the pool, the pool was being drained and several groups of people were standing around. I quickly got dressed and went downstairs to ask what was going on. According to one tenant that passed by the pool late the night before, the elderly man came out as usual to swim, took off his bathrobe, laid his apartment keys on the table, but this time in the pool area were some young adults in their twenties and teens quietly partying and drinking. That was all he saw when passing by. Around 7:00 that morning he was found face-down in the water, his keys were missing and his apartment door wide open. I had seen this man doing what he enjoyed doing the most, for over a year, then suddenly he was gone. That night I walked outside onto my balcony, the moon was full and the evening was beautiful. I was sick at heart and confused and needed to understand the reason behind something so senseless. Not even thinking to look and see if others were outside where they could hear me, I stared up at the moon and said out loud, “God, I don’t understand. How could something like this happen right under my nose? I could have helped him somehow. How could this have happened while I slept so close by?”  When I was through pouring out my confusion and heartache, God spoke audible to me and said these few words, “I am the God of Life.” I didn’t understand what the Lord was saying. He didn’t answer my question at all.

Sometimes this world can be so beautiful. The landscapes, the ocean, the stars, the animals but then, sometimes I really hate this world. I hate the ungodliness of it and all those things that God never intended to happen . . . Sickness, pain, disease, fear, crime and death and all those things that have nothing to do with life, itself.

As I thought about this man again today after all these years, I began to cry. Not because he is gone, but because I have wasted too many years of my own life feeling unsatisfied and sometimes ungrateful and uncaring. I have taken so many things for granted and spent too much time being caught up in my own little world with its own little cares. I worry about different things now and then and about getting this done or doing that. The beauty that does exist, I have far too often, missed. I may not have all that I want in life, but I do have another day to breathe, another day to smell the roses outside my door, or to call my son and tell him I love him. God gave me this day, not to be worried or to feel regret or unforgiveness and anger, but to do what He has called me to do. He never promised that my pet will be with me tomorrow or that my son will have another chance to say, “I love you,” or that I will wake up in the morning feeling like all is right with the world. But I do have today to tell someone who is lost and hurting that my God is the God of Life and in Him they can live forever...Where sickness, pain, disease, fear, crime and death does not exist but where Jesus, laughter, Life, beauty and joy will surround us for an eternity.

I guess God did answer my question after all. I have the feeling when I go Home, I will see my neighbor swimming again and doing what he enjoyed doing the most, but this time I think I will join him. Not out of concern for his safety but for the pure pleasure of it. When the “God of Life” lives within us, we don’t just live forever . . . we have a second chance to live again the way He intended.

© Copyright Cheryl Taul
April 16, 2008

"You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord."
(Leviticus 19:32)