Oh where has my bonnie gone?

Life.

How could something so complicated be so simple? I am pondering this and I felt like blogging about my experience with life.
When I was young learned that life was precious. My grandma dying created this picture in my mind that when people get old they die, it's sad, but everyone goes to heaven so it's ok. I mean, that's what everyone said at the funeral. "mémère is an angel now, looking down on you and watching you." they would say. When we arrived home from the funeral my sisters and I received a long talk about where people really go. how there are only two options. Either they know and love Jesus and go to Heaven or they don't know him and they go to Hell.

From that point on I wanted everyone to know Jesus, I still do, but my motives are different then before. Then I would ask my uncle in front of everyone if he knew Jesus, everyone would laugh and I would be left asking myself why. I would tell them that he needs to know Jesus, or he will go to hell, they laughed more. As one of my "evangelistic approaches" I would ask to pray for the meal at grandmas house and pray for everyone by name who wasn't Christian and ask that they would try to know Jesus soon, my parents gave me another talk about not praying like that after we got home.

Life was a big thing for me, I wanted to enjoy it, sometimes I would sit in the grass in a field during a picnic and stare at the clouds and grass, the mountains and birds, the wind and trees and I would take mental pictures in my mind so that I would be able to appreciate life and it's beauty.
As previously told at this point I still believed that people died when they grew old. But when my family and I ran an orphanage in Africa for seven months that changed my view of this, sometimes overnight we would go from thirty babies under two years old to under twenty babies. While there I had my favorite baby, Madeliene, I was teaching her to talk and walk when, while we were in the capital, she just stopped breathing, I couldn't imagine how such a short life could just die like that. Life doesn't last till all are old. I could go on and on about young people who in an instant are cut short of life. But I know and trust that God had a plan for each of them, His plan is not always ours. It's a hard lesson but it's the truth.

Some people do grow old though, I visit senior homes on a monthly basis now, but used to go every week, (thanks high school) I met a woman who was quite "with it" compared to the rest whose name was Patricia. We talked long about many things from her life to mine, from music to school. I always felt like bringing up faith in the conversations but never ended up doing it. One morning I was reading the newspaper and happened to look in the obituaries, Patricia had died. The paragraph talked about her vibrant love for her Lord however, and I knew that God had her in His arms at that moment. Life goes and comes. God cares for each and every life. he wants all to know His son Jesus Christ, but some don't make it to his arms. I know many who have taken that path also. There are many not so pleasant stories I could tell.
Life goes by fast. You never know when it will end, you could only have a minute left to live or maybe many years, maybe a decade, maybe only a week. Let's live then! Carpe Diem!

-Ainsley