Consume me, Lord. Make Yourself my One Passion.
The world was dark. I saw a small box with a square of light. Slowly, I approached it and cautiously picked it up.
Without thinking, I instinctively drew it even closer to my face to see the picture inside. Gasping, I fought to pull it away from my face, finding I could not move it.
Blinking back the tears furiously, I was forced to gaze upon the scene. A woman was crying beside a hospital bed. A girl was driving away from a home, with anger in her eyes. A teenage boy was trying beer for the first time. A young girl was being abused by her father. A woman was taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills. A man and wife were fighting. A family was learning of a fatal car crash. A girl sat crying in an abortion clinic.
I tried to push the box away, exerting everything I had to push it away when a gentle hand stopped me.
“Child.” I paused, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Child, look.” I opened my eyes and once again gazed into the box.
I saw the same woman from the hospital, this time at a grave. She smiled, placing a single flower on the grave, and gazing upwards toward Heaven.
I saw the girl that had run away picking up her cellphone, hesitantly making the first call to her family. Her face lit up, and a smile stretched across her face.
The teenage boy that tried the beer was persuading his friend that the “thrills” of life were less than thrilling the day after. Persuaded, they walked away together talking earnestly.
I saw the young girl that had been abused. Grown up, she could cry with the young women she counseled daily. She could relate to them and show them a true way to escape their pain.
I smiled. These people had survived their pain. They had lived-and conquered!-their sufferings. I looked again.
I saw the family of the woman who committed suicide crying and grieving together. I saw her daughter, years later pondering the same exit her mother had taken.
I saw the man and wife years later, divorced. Broken and jaded, they hid behind their masks swallowing the pain they never could quite leave behind them.
The girl from the abortion clinic tossed and turned in her bed. With sleep eluding her she rubbed her eyes, tired. The faces haunted her, keeping her from sleep at night.
My jaw dropped in horror. How could God allow these people to suffer such pain? Surely he would not allow this pain to go on. Tears spilled from my eyes as the images of raw pain continued. The hands cupped my face, turning my face to meet his tear-filled eyes.
“Child, this is the way it had to be. Look again.”
I looked again, reluctant to see even more suffering. But then I saw all of it. Complete, moving, living history played out before my eyes as I saw the picture as a whole. I smiled, although it was painful to do so.
It was glory.
I turned, understanding in my eyes. “It’s all about the glory, isn’t it? In the end, living and dying, pain and happiness all of it’s about the glory?”
“So you see.”
Perhaps after the New Year….And….My nephew Aiden was born!!! Aiden is the sweetest baby ever, but of course, I’m not a proud auntie at all…Pff… 
Could’ve been much worse.
Hannah Grace