March 16, 2022

LifeDate Spring 2022

by Pastor Michael Salemink

Words matter, especially to Christians. Our Savior is the Word made flesh, and from His Word comes the faith that saves. But human beings are not books, and human life amounts to more than sentences or even stories.

Sometimes words cannot quite express the wonder—a time to speak and a time to keep silence (Ecclesiastes 3:7). Sometimes, especially at the edges, life brings us into exceptionally close contact with the grace and glory of God.

Announcing a pregnancy, feeling a fetus kick, cradling a newborn, attending a Baptism, what happens and what we experience defy description. Grieving and believing over a terminal diagnosis, listening to an aged neighbor’s wisdom and reminiscences, holding a loved one’s hand at a hospital bedside, singing hymns and reciting Scriptures as a relative enters eternity, the encounter exceeds even the beauty and power of words.

We find ourselves speechless:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

With the Psalmist we grasp at adjectives that fall magnificently short:

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Can “amazing!” capture or express it? Probably not. That’s exactly why life IS amazing!