Each Day is a Gift

Life is such a crazy mixture of joy and sadness. As so evident in these photos, my dear friends Christina and Elliott are particularly gifted with joy. Few people would have a paint fight in the snow as part of their engagement pictures. These two have been together for six years, since they were teenagers. They are one of the quirkiest, most hilariously compatible couples I have ever met. Elliott owns his dorkiness so much that he is actually cool. (Let's just say that he read the dictionary for fun as a jr higher.) Christina is has the energy, optimism, and messiness of a six year old. They are the kind of people that always make a party better.  

 They are supposed to be getting married at the end of August, right before Elliott starts his next semester of pre-med classes and Christina finishes her internship. But this week, their world was turned upside down, as Elliott found out that the bone cancer that he fought so hard to beat already is back with a vengeance. And it doesn't look good. So the grieving begins, the brokenness of the world real and tangible today. 

And yet, through the tears, I hear the wisdom well beyond their 20 something years. We must enjoy today, they say, we don't know how long we will have, we want to love each other as fiercely as we can while we have the chance. We want to fight to trust in a Creator who is sustaining us and giving us grace for this moment. We want to grieve, but we want to laugh too. 

It's amazing how quickly no one cares what colors the candles for the wedding are, and how it's reminding all of us about what really matters. The important things are so simple and yet get lost so easily in our normal day-to-day living. We forget quickly to be thankful, it's much easier to complain. We struggle to see the good, it's much faster to find the bad. We grumble about going to work, or cleaning the house, or sitting in traffic, instead of stopping to realize each day is a gift. A simple, but profound gift, to live today. 

Thank you friends, for showing me this agonizingly beautiful gift.