Suppose this for a moment, it is your birthday. There you are at your party; everyone you want to celebrate with is there. You’re smiling and laughing – it is a great time. They start singing the song, you know the one. You’ve heard it a million times before. Then you see it. Here comes your birthday cake. It is set down right in front of you, and you discover a huge chunk of it has already been carved out. Your birthday cake is missing a piece.
Even though I may personally dislike celebrating my birth, that would hurt. Such a stunt happens all the time. The great dramas of life, the events that shape our ideas of people, are not found in the “moments that last a lifetime.” I doubt if I could recall those truly pivotal moments in my life. I remember who hurt me. I remember the tears. I remember crying out as it felt like my anguish had cut me in two – penetrating to the core of my being.
These are the moments that count. It is one thing to be at the top. When you and God are hand in hand walking through life, the world is never more lovely and never more forgettable. When that grip slips and clouds form on the horizon, we point back and cry out. “Oh God! Why?” We scream and we talk about how good everything was, about how life was different, about how we were walking with God, about how we saw God change the world when we were there with Him.
We point backwards, declaring to any and all that we belong there. That was our spot. “God why? Can’t you see how good we were together?” We reached so many; we did so much. We look forwards. “God I really need you back in my life before this all happens. God I need you help to get through this.” How can I achieve my goals with you if you arn’t there?
It takes me so long. Each and every time I must wait. Not on God, He is ever there. I wait until I remember. God is not in my past; God is not in my future; God is not in my present. God is. I am just along for the ride. He does not need me. I do not complain out of right. I do not present my timetable because it is authoritative.
It is one thing to talk about God, about who He is and about what He has done. It is quite another to get on my knees and thank Him. I may cry out at the past or at the future I have set for myself, but I only have God to cry out to. All my other words are for loss. They create what is missing from my birthday cake.

~JCPunk