This issue is dedicated to the memory of Micah McGlory

        The call came on a Friday. "Micah is dead."
        "No, I'm sorry, but this can't be. Death is for the old, not for seventeen-year-olds."
        "Micah is gone now."
        So I went and watched and listened and cried. I sat in the midst of the unrealness of it all and didn't understand. Not a bit.
        Then I realized the realness of my ordinary life was just as unreal. I had simply gotten used to it.
        How do you get used to death?
        Then I remembered Jesus. He went to a friend's funeral once. Jesus cried, too. I'm glad I serve a God who cries. I'm more glad I serve a God who calls dead men out of their graves. The realization comforts me.
        Three days later I'm on my way to speak at a conference. Now this trip I planned.  Every detail is covered. It will be our biggest yet. Over 2,200 people are coming. I find ways to slip the number into conversations (like I just did in the previous sentence). It will be big. We planned it would be big. We're on our way. Nothing can stop us.
        Except for a half-inch of ice.
        I didn't plan on a half-inch of ice. This is Atlanta, Georgia. They're having the Summer Olympics here, not the winter.
        "We have to call it off. The roads are unsafe. No one can come."
        "No, this can't be happening. We don't have zero people at our conferences." (Zero is not a number I like to slip into my conversations.)
        The mighty, unstoppable conference goes the way of the Atlantis. I sit alone in the empty auditorium and bask in the surrealness of it all. I don't like not being in control.   Then I realize I only thought I was in control before. I was never in control.
        Then I remember Jesus. He had his run-ins with weather, too. I'm glad I serve a God who told the weather to be still. I'm glad he didn't say "please."
But today he had other plans. He's in control. The realization comforts me.
 

    Lord, forgive me for crawling to you in moments of trial and praying as if my weakness were only a pocket of time and not the defining essence of my humanity. I am so weak. I am so not in control. Thank you for making my finitude so tangible. Teach me to live in the realness of your sovereignty. I entrust all to you—the hopes, the dreams, the lofty plans. I give you this magazine. I know you'll do a much better job growing these dreams—or crumpling them. That's okay, too. I know you know what's best. And that's very comforting.