Today was a hard day

Today was a hard day. Jake and I made a memory, did something together for the first time ever, but it's not a memory we were happy to make. We had to go to a funeral today, our first together, and it was one of the hardest things either of us has had to do. Last week, one of the guys at Jake's work was killed on the job. He was electrocuted. Not someone Jake works directly with, but one of the other employees. He was a young guy, only 30, a husband and father of two. One of his children is a newborn.

I'd never met the guy, so it's not as if I knew much about him, other than what Jake's told me since it happened. But the hard thing for me is to put myself in his wife's place. How is she feeling right now? Not good, certainly, but what happens to her now? So many days, Jake goes off to work and it doesn't really sink in with me that things can happen out there, that even though he may try to be as safe as possible no matter what he's doing, accidents can happen. People can be killed in an instant. And the even harder thing for me is that I don't know if this guy was a Christian or not. Sure, they read Scripture at the funeral, and that's definitely comforting. But was he saved? Is he going to heaven? I don't know that.

I can feel assured that even if something did happen to Jake or me, either one, we both know that the other is a Christian, and that we'll see each other in heaven one day. But it's just that jolt of reality when you look at someone laying in a casket who's virtually the same age as you--that's when it hits you that you're not guaranteed any more time than the minute you're in. I don't remember ever going to a funeral of someone who was my age. I'd been to funerals of older relatives and family friends and such, and even one for a baby, but never someone that was in the same age category as I am. It's a very sobering thing.

With all that said, I'll still be in prayer for the family. For the wife, that she'll be able to make it through each day, both emotionally and financially, and that she'll be the type of mother that her two girls need. For the girls, that they'll grow up knowing that their daddy loved them, even though he was taken from them, and that they'll know that their mother wants nothing more than to take care of them. And for the rest of the family and friends, that they'll be able to endure their grief and keep him in their hearts.

And for Jake and me, that this will bring us closer together, that we'll always be able to tell each other how much we love the other, and that we'll treat each day as a gift from God.