The Providential Lack of Providence

I was just thinking about a dear young lady whose high school class was just behind my own.

Her name was Beth

I have written about Beth before, but for some reason her name and memory continue to come flooding back to me. While the petite little lady was in my choral group, it strikes me strange that I think of her as often as I do, since I never recall speaking a single word to her, or vice versa.

By the time the tragic development occurred, I was enrolled in my first year of college, and as I previously implied, the dear girl was a few months from her high school graduation exercise;

… when it happened

Beth and her boyfriend were headed back to her home one rainy night, and as they neared their destination, the vehicle took an unexpected turn; directly into a flooded culvert. She died on impact.

Beth was the daughter of a local music pastor, and his wife. Paul and Martha were loved and esteemed in our little community. Lisbeth was a lovely, Christian girl whose entire life seemingly stretched to the horizon; and full of rich potential.

I have sometimes mused about the topic of what I refer to as a Providential Lack of Providence. I know. The phrase seems almost a contradiction in terms. And to be sure, as Beth was, (and is, since I believe her spirit now resides in a better place), I am a Christian and believe in the ways and means of the Lord.

Nevertheless, the ways of the Lord are, as scripture infers, “past finding out.”

At this writing, I have lived a full six decades and seven years, and have experienced numerous “near misses.” 

As a young man I found myself in the semi-circular sweep of a dragline bucket, and was miraculously spared; only seconds from certain death. During that same season of my life I rolled my first car. My wife and I have shared a couple of near misses while traveling a local highway; just minutes from the safety of our home. In the past couple of years I fell from a ladder, and landed on a very unforgiving surface. Concrete. Soon thereafter, I developed a melanoma on my calf, just above the top of my yellow, florescent cast; which contributed to my wife having noticed the unusual shape of the mole one day, and provided me the wherewithal to seek medical assistance. It occurs to me that only as the result that previous accident had the malignancy been discovered.

Providence

(or)

The Lack Thereof

Why someone like me has been given chance after chance. Opportunity after opportunity. And someone like Beth, with equally as much potential, or more, was stolen away from us in her prime.

I have stood at her gravesite. Pulled a few weeds. Leveled her headstone. Paid my respects. Who might have predicted our ultimate, though separate fates, as we practiced Handel’s Messiah, or prepared for an upcoming state contest; hers swift coming, and my own long delayed.

What wonderful things she might have done. What inestimable good she might have offered the world.

It baffles the mind.

The only solace I have ever taken away from the entire thing is a phrase I once heard used for another delightful young lady who was taken from us in her prime.

In God’s great scheme of things, her work was finished

Her duties this side of heaven were simply done

While I can never hope to reconcile why mortal lights like Beth, with limitless potential, are too quickly ushered into eternity, while lesser lights are allowed to tempt and try and torment those with whom they have to do, or simply live out bland and unfulfilled existences, and leave no mark upon the world,

… those good and Godly, the eager and extraordinary who have preceded us in that inevitable march to a higher sphere virtually shout,

“Carpe Diem!”

“Seize the Day!”

“We who were denied the opportunity to live, and move and breathe beyond our few and fleeting years. The best we can hope for, and all we can do is to loan you the potential which was so rudely stripped from us.”

“Carpe Diem!”

“Seize the Day.”

“Make your lives extraordinary! Do not disappoint us! Earn every single moment of those years which were denied to us. Impact your world during the brief time Providence has granted you; for the day is fast approaching when you will join us, and someone very much like yourself will take your place. How much light will you contribute to their pathway?"


By William McDonald, PhD. (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 31. Copyright pending

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