My Love/Hate Relationship with Sappy Sad Songs

I have a fiercely intense love/hate relationship with super sad songs.  Our radio station here likes to over play them.  Call emotions a currency in my life.  Unless I’m willing to spend it on the song a perfectly good sad song will make me angry after I’ve heard it fifty times.  It’s the reason I loathe the “Christmas Shoes Song” that everyone likes to sing all the time.  My tear strings have been pulled one too many times, and the currency has been spent regarding the lyrics.  These songs always revolve around love lost and death. 

The first time I heard “He was Walking Her Home” By Mark Shultz http://youtu.be/_ODSx0UfAcA I got so emotional I almost had to pull the car over.  It was hard to drive through my tears.  I wanted to yell at God.  But I began crying to Him, “I just don’t understand it!  Why would you put people on this earth to love and then just have them torn from them when they die?”  Had I thought about my emotions at the moment perhaps I would have reasoned them away.  God responded to my thoughts very simply.  I heard him deep within me respond, “But Anna, that was never My will.”

With those brief words it was as if pieces of a puzzle piece seem to fit together.  Death on this earth was never God’s will.  We were created to love.  Death came in through sin.  It is through Jesus Christ that we can lay hold of a promise in eternity.  (John 3:16)  God loved us all enough to give us a chance at eternal life.  Death and goodbyes stink, but the good news is that when we are in Christ Jesus we have the promise of eternity.  I have wished so many times that God would just let us email in heaven.  I have a couple people I’d love to hear from and I’d settle for an email.  My grandmother and 3 dear pastors of mine all passed within the last few years.  Man, I’d just settle for an email….

When I hear the song “He was Walking Her Home” I think of my grandparents.  My grandmother was a woman full of fire.  She and my grandfather met at 16 and 17, and were married a year later.  Grandma has been gone now for over 6 years and I still miss her every day.  I know my grandfather does too.  I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a life with someone for that long, and then have to adjust to life without them.  I have no doubt that she is in heaven now, joining my cheering section, and that I’ll see her again one day. 

While people write about these sad songs, death is something we’ll all have to face.  There is a time to be born and a time to die.  There is a time for everything under heaven. (Ecc 3)  It’s so easy to shrug off the inevitable but one day, unless the Lord comes back for His church in your life time, we’ll all have to face our last days. 

It can be very easy to get annoyed at the little things in life.  It can be easy to want to smack your spouse and scream at your kids, but when I lie on my death bed what will my regrets be?  What will my legacy be?  How will I be remembered?  How do you want to be remembered?  If your life is a song do you want it to be one of hope or tragedy?

I say all this to say this morning, enjoy your life.  Live your days to the fullest.  Don’t let things go unsaid or undone.  Do not live with regrets.  Despite having to see death on this earth life is still a gift and eternity is very real.  Do not wait too long to determine where you’re going after you die.  I don’t know about you, but while death doesn’t look like fun; I am looking forward, many years from now, to an awesome reunion party in heaven.  There are a lot of hugs I’m waiting to give. 

God has awesome plans for your life.  Get excited.