Revelation 3:1-6

Revelation 3:1-6 
Contemporary English Version (CEV)

  This is always a hard day for me.  19 years ago, my best friend didn't wake up, and I did, and ever since that day, I've wrestled with the basic unfairness of it all.  To be 19 and invincible and have the world crash down around  you is a terrible thing, and then to try and make sense of something insensible... it's impossible, and yet the sun rises in the morning, and we must press on, right?  There is hope on the other side of the horizon, and yet every day, seeing the path can seem like grasping for the light switch in the dark, where any step can send you careening into unseen obstacles.
  I don't know why some live and some don't, why some thrive and others don't, why life happens the way it does.  I think about where my friend should be, and it hurts, to this day -- the sorrow is an ache to the depths of my soul.  I still remember the tears I cried and the tears his mother cried and the way our souls still weep to this day.  Often, I have only a little strength left, and it is almost gone. 
  Here in this letter, the church is urged to stretch towards God.  We can run in fear, or we can turn to God in trust.  Each day, I try and choose trust.  I don't always do it, and some days I wander in fear and uncertainty and mourning, but trust calls  to me still, whispers to my soul, and I want to choose faithfulness, to walk with the Lord towards the light, to let God carry me forward, for my strength is not my own, and my wisdom is not my own, and my life is not my own -- it belongs to God, body and soul, and I entrust myself to God's greater providence.  I know not  what the journey holds, but I know the end, and I trust in God to lead me there.