Today

The night before Shadow died I was trying out a new photo program. As I was speaking to my mom about what they were going to do with Shadow, I pulled up his picture. Here we were talking about this old dog, diseased and in so much pain. We spoke of how we had no choice other than to let him suffer or to put him down. Throughout all this convincing ourselves of his sorry state and his need for his suffering to end, I was looking at Shadow's portrait. I began to imagine him young again. Soon I found myself erasing the signs of age. I darkened his fur, returned the shine to his coat, and erased the pain from his eyes. It all felt so surreal. He was old and at the very end of his life, yet here I was trying to make him new again.

Tonight in church, this experience came back to me. I realized that what I was trying to do with Shadow, was what Christ actually did for us on Good Friday, what he began that day on the cross. I heard His words, "Behold, I make all things new."(Rev 21.5) On that cross, He began to wipe away all of our signs of age. He started to smooth out our wrinkles. He began to take away our pain. Yet He didn't just do this on the surface. In fact, he didn't even start there. He began at the source, our souls.

He began to make you new that day. He died on the cross for you, so that age, disease, and death might not claim you and hold you forever. He died so that He might give you life. So today, don't trust in yourself. Don't fool yourself into thinking you hold back the inevitable. No matter how how hard you try, you will grow old and you will die. There is nothing you can do to hold these things back. Trust in Christ. Only He can make you new.