Certainty

On a bright fall day in 1946, the seniors dressed in their caps and gowns, taking pictures on the high school lawn before storing the graduation attire until the anticipated date in May. With joy and anticipation you can feel even 68 years later, small groups of boys and girls paired together. Some made funny faces or silly poses for the camera. Some waved into the lens. It was a day of joy.

Just a few pages beyond the smiles and laughter, the sketch of a wreath encircles the senior pictures of nine young men, some still teenagers. Each has a name, date of graduation, and date that they gave their life for their country in World War II. As you turn the yellowed pages, you see one entirely dedicated to Mary, an attractive senior girl who died suddenly of polio just two weeks after she posed on that autumn day in cap and gown.

What contrasts these pages hold! It hardly seems that they belong in the same book. Life is like this, it hardly seems sometimes that the joys and sorrows could belong in the same book. But Ecclesiastes has an answer in chapter 3, verse 4; there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;” and those long-ago teenagers remind us of the great contrasts life holds.

Can we be certain of anything? Sometimes it doesn’t seem so. But there is certainty in this world and it is found only in trusting Christ, the One Who gave His life for us. Only He will never change. He knows the course we will take in life, and His great love for us never fails–of that we can be certain.