On this Good Friday, as I reflect upon the cross and the crucifixion, I'm left to wonder what is the value of a soul. I learned five and half years ago, when my husband and I lost our baby girl, Ella Grace, that in order to arrive at some place of sanity as I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I had to reconcile what I knew to be true about God with my present circumstances. This is a reality for all of life's journey, I think, not just when we enter our darkest hours. Since that day five and half years ago, I've experienced other things, that before her death, I would have labeled "hard", but since, I've discovered are really just uncomfortable. I know hard things will come again. It is one of our resurrected Savior's promises to us.
The Why's in His Ways
There aren't enough pages or enough time for me to record all that I've learned and continue to learn about who God is and what God does and how HE connects to my circumstances, as every-changing as they are. But one thing I've learned and continue to learn is the value of a soul. Very soon after I learned that my daughter would die, I had an understanding that God had chosen this road for me. There was a stirring in my spirit, if you will, a settling of something that left me with the sense that God was not absent in this. He had chosen it for me. My heart struggled to understand why a loving God would create a little girl just to have her die. I know there is so much of my daughter's short life and her death that I don't understand and may never understand. God's ways are indeed higher than what my mind can understand, but what I do know is that her life and death reveal something about the value of a soul.
Perhaps, He created her to teach me about His grace, which is really more than sufficient for every need I may have. Or perhaps, He created her to teach me about His faithfulness or how He really is close to the brokenhearted. I could name every characteristic of God and tell of how I learned these things to be so very true during her short life. But one of the greatest things I've learned and continue to learn is the value of a soul.
James is no liar when he writes that life is a vapor. As the years tick away, as I watch my sons grow into young boys and then young men, I gain a greater sense of eternity. It is coming...soon. As I continue my life journey, I don't so easily pass people by without considering their soul. Sometimes, as I'm caught up in the workings of my life, as I stand in the grocery check-out, wrangling two boys, wishing for a moment of silence for this introvert's heart, that same stirring I heard during my daughter's early diagnosis, reminds me of the soul that is ringing up my groceries, driving my son's bus, living in the house next to me.
The Value of a Soul
The value of a soul is greater than I can understand, but what I do know is that it was for the souls of men that God sent His Son to be crucified, to die a death He did not deserve, to pay a debt He did not owe. As I consider the cross on this Good Friday, I must reconcile this truth with my circumstances. Christ died a death He did not deserve because the value of my soul was of greater value to Him than His own innocence. What I discover is that, if I'm to be like Christ, I have to value the souls of those with whom I interact daily, momentarily, or sparingly more than I value any of my self-perceived rights or freedoms. I even have to allow wrongs to go un-righted, or show mercy to those who do not deserve mercy. I learned the value of souls when God took away the life of my daughter. I know many would have been touched by a miracle if He had chosen to heal her. We could have told the story to many people. But the story might have grown dim as the minutes turned into hours, the hours into days, the days into years and we would have told the story no more or only sparingly. When she died, the weight of her loss was placed upon my heart. I have carried it everyday since her passing. It is part of who I am, purposefully given to me by a God who is loving, faithful, kind, and true, because if I have it with me everyday, it will not grow dim, nor will I stop telling the story of how God created a little girl to die that I might remember just how near eternity is. That I might never forget just how valuable a soul is. That I might not stop telling, not her story, but HIS story. It has always been His story. Today, as I consider the cross and the crucifixion, on this Good Friday, I consider the value of a soul, of the souls of many who cross my path every day. I must not stop telling because Sunday is coming. Eternity is near. And she lives because He lives.
