a little longer, Lord. She so much wanted to see her grandchildren
growing up.” From a human perspective, I would have said, “She’s
too young. Let her stay for our sakes.”
And yet I know one thing about Alix. She lived the exact number
of years, months, days, and hours that God had planned for her to
live. Her times were in his hands. She knew him. She trusted him.
And at the end, when the cancer had become an enemy raging
through her body, she knew that her God was winning the ultimate
battle regardless of what the doctors were reporting.
There was a peace underneath it all, because at the end she re-
leased her fierce grasp on the life she loved and was able to pray as
David did, “My times are in your hands.”
Whatever we are grasping today in our lives we must ultimately
release, so we might as well begin to face that now. Whatever con-
trol we thought we had we must eventually let go like a bouquet of
balloons that will float up to the heart of heaven. Not black balloons,
but wildly colored ones—all the colors of this beautiful life that
we’ve been blessed to enjoy for a season. For we are his and he is
ours and in the end, our times, like our lives, are in his hands.
Father, thank you that you know the limits of our lives. Help me to
agree with you. Help me to begin now to let go, releasing my fierce
grip on the life you’ve given me. Help me to celebrate each day and
at the same time to live with the surrender that must eventually be
in my heart at the end. Amen.101 MOST POWERFUL PRAYERS IN THE BI BLE 189