I wish I could communicate how much I love the Lord recently. Saying it just doesn't cut it. Amazing Grace, its sound is sweet, but I love Him so much more than I can sing in chapel or raise my hands in church or convey to my best friend. I can't explain the pocket of joy in my throat. C.S. Lewis said this: I doubt whether anyone who has tasted [joy] would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.

I wouldn't trade it.

And yet at home in New York this weekend is marked by suffering, by death. Shouldn't there be more of a sense of mourning? Shouldn't the sick pit in my stomach feel bigger than the joyful lump in my throat? There will be a funeral this week for a boy-man, one who loved the Lord wholly and was never afraid to walk out the Christian life in front of a hostile audience. He didn't have much on his side, just a child-like faith and a happy step, but he had joy on his side. A friend posted this about him on her website this morning:

"Ironically, in the car on the way to Lampsons Falls, Scott shared how he came toknow the Lord as his Savior, how much he enjoyed being a child of God and how much he enjoyed knowing God. He even said, ‘I wish every day was Sunday.’ He said he wished he could be in the presence of God every day. He wished that he could go to church every day and be in fellowship with other believers. He wished he could enjoy the awesome presence of the Lord everyday and not have to worry about an assignment due to next morning. Scott also showed us a hammer and chisel he had just purchased for his geology class. He shared his deep love for geology and his adoration for the world that God had created for us."

And so, when I think to myself that the sting of death ought to be greater than the Joy of the Lord at times like these, I rebuke myself and tears form in my eyes -- The whole reason we celebrate Joy is because the sting of death is abolished!

A tragedy happened this weekend. Sucked into the waters of a river, but never sucked into the waters of the world, Scott knew his Joy was incomplete. And when he next opens his eyes there will be nothing he would trade for the completion of that Joy.

But we'll miss him in the meantime.