sunset or sunrise?

Dear old Grandma could not be budged from Florida...not yet. Her sons each grabbed a leg and an arm, but she managed to sink her teeth into the door frame and no matter how hard they pulled she was unyielding.

She is frail and should not be living alone, in our opinion, but no sign of fraility was apparent as she refused to leave her home.

My husband Arvo and his brother, R, both dropped to the floor in a puddle of defeat and begged her to see reason. Her mind is as whip sharp as it always was, and despite all the daily struggle of managing a home, she would not opt for the cushy life of someone else caring for her. Not yet.

I advised they get a care provider to come to the home instead. I will start making calls after I finish booking the honeymoon for the newly soon to be married son.

I can't help but find it ironic that at the same moment in my life, I am watching the excited couple about to begin the journey into adulthood, and the tired old woman who is nearing its completion. One is filled with the hope of expectation; the other with the peace of fulfillment. One is making dreams; and the other is reconciling herself to dreams unrealized. One plans for a spectacular beginning; one hopes for a gentle and peaceful end. One is blithely exploding into a new phase of independence; while the other is gently succumbing to unwelcome dependence. I stand straddled between both worlds- a beginning and an ending longing to ease the struggles of both.

Funny how in the natural world, sunrise and sunset are interchangeable. They look the same. And God, who painted the world in exactly the right colors is telling me, "They are the same." They occur because we are on a circular path, but it is the same sun we see rising in the morning as we see setting in the evening. Our perspective may be different, but the sun is immutable.

The same soul that glowed in Grandma at the start of her days will glow in her at the end. The same God that created her and patted her back as she skipped off to her life will gently hold her gnarled hand and pull her back to His everlasting embrace when her journey ends. The same God will shout, "Safe travels!" to the bounding young couple who can barely restrain the enthusiasm for life, as the God who whispers, "Well done, Welcome home" to His weary servant upon her shuffling return.

It is a message of hope to me, that the sunrise and sunset are bathed in the same glorious strokes of warm glowing reds and magentas as a familiar Voice beckons me draw near. It is the same Voice that coaxed me to be brave when the sun first bathed my face, as well as when it casts its last beam upon my back.

Amos 4: 12-13
¹² "Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,
and because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel."

¹³ He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth—
the LORD God Almighty is his name.

Jeremiah 24:7 (NIV)
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.