An Unfair Advantage

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”

Matthew 6:21




Have you ever really thought about how suffering helps us to know Jesus in a deeper way and how the loss of someone you love can work in our lives to keep us focused on what matters and to readily identify the things that don’t. For me, Danielle’s death seventeen years ago today has given me what I call an unfair advantage. Let me explain. On this date, August 20, 2004 Danielle Marie Gould departed this earth for heaven after being involved in an automobile accident not far from her home. She was young, seventeen years old and just days away from being a high school senior who was beautiful inside and out. With an infectious personality she was smart and funny, extremely out going, and best of all, she loved Jesus and she loved people. It’s no wonder that her death shook my world and that of my family and our friends Tink and Sherrill, Danielle’s Dad and Mom. Life as we knew it would never be the same again after she left as there is a Danielle shaped void no one else can fill.

There’s an old Rascal Flatts song that expresses a lot of what I am sure most everyone who knew and loved Danielle is feeling today all these years later. The words go something like this, “I miss you so much Your light, your smile, your way and everything about us. Now you're gone, You're still here in my heart, in my tears. Yeah you sure left your mark. And we were just getting started. It wasn't long enough, It wasn't long enough together but it was long enough, yeah it was long enough to last forever.” It’s an understatement to say that Danielle left her mark and though we only had her for seventeen years, it was long enough to last forever. Forget her, not in a million years.

The unfair advantage I have today, seventeen years later now is that Danielle’s death brought heaven closer and much more into focus because she is there. My unfair advantage is understanding at a depth I had not previously known what Jesus meant when He said, “where your treasure is your heart be also.” Like her Mom and Dad, my wife and I along with our kids treasured Danielle when she was here with us on earth and because she loved Jesus, and is by His side today we treasure her in heaven today. She was in our heart when she walked this earth and she is still in our hearts today. Time and space can’t change that.

I have an unfair advantage today knowing what the enemy has meant for evil God continues to turn for good, even after seventeen years. With each day that passes we are not further away from her, no, it’s just the opposite. The Bible makes clear, we are one day closer than when we first believed. Having the hope of heaven and the belief that to be absent from the body is present with the Lord we rejoice today as we eagerly await the reunion that will take place one day. Yes, loved one, I have an unfair advantage today along with the Gould family because our hearts are set in heaven because thats where the ones we treasure are. It’s true, where your treasure is your heart be also.

“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

John 17:24


I LOVE YOU!