Here Today; Gone Tomorrow

March 4, 2010:

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes ~ James 4:14

I was so excited this morning – my first ever air show! I looked at the pass like a zillion times… Charged my camera all night long coz I didn’t want to miss any pictures. Morning seemed to take forever. I woke up – took flat 30mins to get dressed and out of the house. I rushed my way through the security check, holding on to my pass for dear life.

So many planes – WOW! I felt insignificant around them.

The show started… Fighter planes zipping by… Two planes from the right, two from the left came close to each other and made a split – two took the U to the left but only one took the U to the right… What happened? Where’d the 4th flight go? It swirled in the sky for a few seconds – what a cool stunt I thought. Little did I know, that was no stunt – that was the pilot’s struggle between life and death. I watched in horror as the fighter plane crashed in to a building – a loud blast and the plane was consumed in flames. Thick dark smoke. We saw one pilot eject himself – parachute up in the sky. Was he safe? The darn thing didn’t open – he hit hard ground and died.

It all seemed so weird. A split second ago, pilots Commander S. K. Maurya and Lt. Commander Rahul Nair were up in the sky; probably even imagining the excitement of their audiences. The next thing they know, the flight goes out of control. The same flight that took them zooming in the sky, brought them crashing down to rock bottom.

All this made me wonder – what would have been going through their minds? I agree that there were others injured in the mishap. But, isn’t not anticipating injury and getting injured so much easier than, staring at the choice between life and death, knowing fully well that they would both result in death alone? Imagine their hopelessness!

Gosh! Itz all so scary!

All the hopes and plans that Maurya and Rahul made for today, for tomorrow, for their lives ahead, all vanished in a split second. I understood at that point what James (in the Bible) meant when he compared life to a vapor – here today, gone tomorrow.

Maurya and Rahul would’ve practiced their acts zillions of times – they trusted their equipment. They knew their planes would pull this act off today as well… What happened? All that they hoped in, gave way to a crash landing.

I ask myself today, where is my hope and my security built? On the equipment I use? On my job? My family? My friends? On my possessions? … whatz the point of figuring it all out and then realizing that my only hope gives way?

At that point, I remembered a very old hymn that I learnt. It was a reality check to see where I stand… Actually a check on where my hope stands… It made me realize that I still may be shit scared to look at death in the eye but if I did, I wouldn't lose hope - for my hope is built on things unseen -

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

When Darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
supports me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in Him be found!
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne!

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

I’m still unsure of my tomorrow. Unsure of what is and what is to be - Unsure of life, uncertain of my future. But, my reality is in the fact that I know ‘Who’ holds tomorrow, and I know ‘Who’ holds my hand.

Many things about tomorrow, I still don’t seem to understand… But you know what? Now, it doesn't matter as much!