Nemo Ante Mortem Beatus

Nobody is blessed before his death.

Time is a blessing and a curse, and I have had an over abundance of time in the last six months because of my hip injury and surgery. Despite all of this time to think about life, six months isn't enough time to heal all my wounds. The more I think through things, the more I realize that I don't have a clue as to anything in life. The paradox to my life is that while I have been given everything, I have nothing.

This morning I was on Facebook and one of my friends had posted a link to this amazing song by Brandon Heath that illustrates, to a degree, what I mean. "Wait and See." I dare you to look it up. The basic point of the song is that despite all of the uncertain times during life, "there is hope for me yet, because God won't forget all the plans He's made for me, I have to wait and see - He's not finished with me yet."

There is the promise of everything, but it will take my lifetime for me to have it. Nemo ante mortem beatus. Get it yet?

Yeah, me neither, but I'm trying. That's why I'm here, right?

My experience with this process has often proven to be lonely because it seems that I have to lose everything in order to gain it. This loneliness is somewhat hilarious to me though because of its irony: I am the lonliest in a crowd of people and as happy and content as a lark alone in my driveway on a starlit night.

Case in point:

When the world is cloaked by night
And the clouds are laced by moonlight bright -
Silence of the soul makes plain
A place where peace again may reign.

My lonely path is bedecked by lights -
Glittering beacons from Heaven's heights -
Endowing my way of weary terrain
With tender assurance that life is not vain.

This quiet interlude of peaceful Might
Enraptures my soul with sublimest delight!
Then with the midnight song, like rain,
My soul is cleansed by the heavenly strain:

The "ribbits", and crickets, though hid from my sight,
Boldly encourage my heart to flight!
Flee from the fear of grief and pain -
Flee from the memory of disdain.

For within this sacred Cathedral of Night
My soul may forget Mortality's plight -
And though I'm alone, Angels will entertain
Until with God I shall ever remain.

Everything is backwards, topsy-turvy, and inside-out for me! But "there is hope for me yet, because God won't forget, all the plans He's made for me. I have to wait and see: He's not finished with me yet. Still wondering why I'm here, still wrestling with this fear, but oh He's up to something, and the farther on I go, I've seen enough to know that I'm not even nothing, He's up to something."

He's not finished with me yet.

I have this funny feeling that life I'll hurt a lot more before He's through, so perhaps I lack the gusto with which I ought to declare the motto Dad and I adopted, but no one survives life anyway: Bring It On... And then when I finally die, I will see everything that He has given me.

Nemo Ante Mortem Beatus