About the Writer:
Carol
Ilbery

Depth, compassion and love are the tools Carol uses in her written communication. She paints pictures with words and develops concepts into application. As a mother of two daughters, one twelve years old and the other two years old, Carol is busy but makes time to express what she is learning about God in her life.

No Guarantees

By Carol Ilbery

“There are no guarantees of tomorrow,” or are there?

I received an email from the brother of an old high school friend of mine today. I don’t hear from her, but receive updates from him now and again about what’s going on in his life. I was a bit saddened by the last statement in his note, which calmly said that he’s learned from life that there are no guarantees of tomorrow. And while I tend to agree with it, I am finding more and more that one cannot really look at life that way—at least not with the negative meaning that was meant here.

No, there aren’t any guarantees that we will be here tomorrow or that life will continue to go on as it currently is, but is that really a bad thing? And while those guarantees aren’t around, God has given us plenty of other guarantees that I think far outweigh the lost of those ‘uncertainties’ in life. To me, His promises are guarantees and it gives me such great comfort to know that they exist.

For example, if we aren’t here tomorrow (and we KNOW Jesus as our personal Savior), then we will be in His presence for He has told us in the Bible “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

And, while life is good, I honestly think that it would be great for life to continue on the same way; then a problem arises and I am drawn closer to Him, causing me to realize that life is now better than it was. So, I suppose in the gritty honesty that He sees within us, I don’t want life to continue on the same as it is right now. I like it when He draws me close to Him; I might not like his method whilst I’m in the midst of it, but I love the outcome. I suppose it’s like the load of white laundry all stained—it soaks in stinky bleach and has to get tossed, beaten, wrung dry, and then thrown in the dryer to get really hot just to maintain some decent level of whiteness. I need the rough times to draw me close to Him and help keep me clean—to keep me aware of my stains in order to confess them to God and be free of them.

Copyright © May 22, 2007 – Carol Ilbery. All rights reserved.

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