In the news........

We all read the stories. The late breaking, edge of your seat news stories. Sometimes there's a fire, or a car crash, or a burglary- but this time it was a body.

I've become one of those who silently prays for dang near everyone and everything. Especially the people in the news. In my heart, I know that there are people behind the stories, and there are occasions that I pray for them based on their circumstances that landed them a spot in the old newsprint.

This time, the prayers preceded the newsprint.

6 1/2 years ago, what seems like an eternity away, Dan's uncle disappeared. We looked, we hung fliers, we prayed. We never found him. We have always held this strange confusion as to what happened to him. It's an uneasy feeling.

Dan's uncle was not mentally stable. He was like a little bitty kid in a giant grown up body. He was awesome-joyful, faithful, loving- he was all of it. But because of his condition, he also spent a lot of time in the mental hospital- it was just part of the road the Lord had selected for him. Didn't really seem to bother him, he was just happy to be it seemed.

And then one day he was gone. Vanished. The hospital couldn't explain where he went. No one had seen him. He was just not there anymore.

And slowly, over time, I suppose we all came to accept that he was probably gone, at home with the Lord. But I never stopped praying. Just for the peace that would come with knowing for sure where he was, and what had happened.

Until this week. The news article read 'bones found, probably human'. It seems so simple, until you remember that those bones were once inside of a human being. And this time, they belong to someone that we love. And someone we miss. It has just created this terrible ache within me. Somehow not the peace that I thought knowing for sure would bring.

Knowing that he had to lay outside- for 6 1/2 years- is just killing me. I feel like we failed him. How could we not have found him, he was right there. I suppose I am grateful that someone did find him. He deserved that. And truth be told, he would have been tickled to have been a big story on the news and in the paper.

Uncle Buddy loved gaudy jewelry, children and his favorite hymn was "How Great Thou Art". He loved his family. And he loved the Lord. And I guess it will feel good to have some sort of closure for his life. But it won't change the fact that we still miss him.