Forever Lost

Matthew 28:19 -- "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations..."

Lonely Dock by Adam Nixon

In an old photo book my fingers gently traced the outline of a precious face and my ears can hear the laughter she once shared with us when our family would gather in Grandma's back yard. If I look hard enough through the screened in back porch, I can almost see her joining us - the cousins - baiting small hooks and dangling them into the Saint Johns River. Jumping and laughing together until the dock shook and caused ripples to span out from the pilings underneath. I'll never know what Grandma did with all the Blue Crabs we caught, some of them probably magically "escaped" back into the murky inlet. But the adventure, the sheer joy was in the catching of them. It was in the team work of family ties that once seemed beyond fraying, beyond being set loose and forever lost that make the old creaky dock so wonderfully full of priceless memories.

She, the precious face, is no longer with us. But she should be. Where we were once eleven strong, it never occurred to any of us that one so close, so deeply entwined in the ever growing family tree branches would slip beyond the green life of it's leaves and fall to the earth - away from us - to brown and wither on the ground. We never imagined where once eleven clambered down the dock an onto Granpa's boat there would one day be only ten. That the joyful bounce in footfalls on weathered wood would loose the spring in it's step and the water would no longer ripple out from the pilings below.

No more freezer bags full of wiggling Blue Crabs. No more water balloon fights in the cool grass or the stealth of cousins trying to push each other off the dock and into the muck - even though we knew we would all be in trouble for it.

Somewhere right in the middle of the cousin line up was a precious human being snatched from the Saunders Clan all too soon. Her life was taken from us on her twenty-fifth birthday. The circumstances were suspicious, but there was no investigation, no closure. We ten, will not ever know how she left us. We know only, that she is gone.

Growing up away from the clan on the mission field - one might imagine that I possessed an eagerness to share my Jesus with those closest to me. Granted, circumstances kept me often separated from family gatherings when our sweet eleven left us - but the real truth is I thought that there would always be tomorrow. Or I felt that another cousin would do the sharing, the asking, the praying. It never occurred to me to sit down and make sure our sweet eleven knew the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

And now the moment is forever lost. There is no asking now. There are no prayers. No assurances that I will one day see that precious face when our Lord calls us all home.

Matthew tells us that Jesus commands us to go out and make disciples. Jesus didn't say to go do it tomorrow or to let some one else make the journey and share the joy. No, he says to us; GO.

I urge you - GO. Don't' worry about being refused. Don't fear being rejected. Just GO and TELL. There just may not be a tomorrow.