Random Thursday Thoughts

I was driving down our town's main throroughfare today at lunch listening to our local Moody radio station.  Chuck Swindoll was preaching about have a relationship with Jesus.  As I was driving down the road he got to altar call and mentioned that we all will die one day and be a corpse.   Pretty graphic for old Chuck on a random Thursday afternoon.   But it was one of those moments that just brought me up sharp.   If you knew my Mother she was a larger than life person in many respects.  She touched so many people and affected so many people's lives.  She lived her life happily, despite her many health concerns, and was a huge part of my day to day existence.  Then she was just....gone.   Her body was a shell, her organs were finished and to be rather graphic, as Chuck was, she was a corpse.   The vivacious, loving person that I had known all my life was nothing more than a collection of skin and bones to be put in a box and be disposed of. 

Now I don't want to come across as gross or disrespectful, because I have a point here, and if you aren't a religious person, beware.  Heavy Christian content to follow!:::::

I, frankly, don't know how anyone gets through the death of a loved one who doesn't know Jesus or isn't sure that loved one did.   My Mom was not the person that is in the ground up at Gardens of Memory Cemetary in Huntington, IN.   The part that WAS my mom is with God.   My Dad asked me the other day he wished he could be sure of that.   My Dad is a relatively new Christian (compared to my Mother) and he has never really done much more than say the Sinners prayer.   Coming to Jesus as an older person is sometimes difficult.  You have the doubts of adult life to prey on you in times like this.   I told him that I was sure of it and if he truly believed that I was as smart of a person as he tells everyone that will listen he should believe its true.   He laughed, but seriously, it isn't up to my brain that my mom is with Jesus or my Dad's lack of true belief.   It's just a fact.  Has my Mother shown up to me in some sort of misty vision since her death telling me she is ok?  No.  Has she "visited" me in dreams, yes.   But if I don't hear her voice again until its my time to "cross over the river", I will have the faith that she will be there waiting for me on the other side.  

I urge anyone who doesn't know this for sure about anyone you know or yourself, please find someone who can tell you about the gospel.  You will be eternally glad you did.  Thus endeth the sermon for the day.

Fourth of July

Wow, been a while since I posted on here!  Lots going on in my life right now, but can't neglect this holiday going by without a mention.  Independence Day was a special day for my mom and me.  It wasn't the fireworks or anything like that, though they played a part.   When I was about 3 years old, my mom had Hodgekins Lymphoma.  In the 70s, this was pretty much a death sentence, and hers had spread to her bones.  She had been given 6 months to live not more than a week or so before the 4th of July that year.  My dad, who was working 60 hour weeks to pay for my mom's treatments, was working the evening of that July 4th in the glass factory in our home town.  The house we lived in, sat within walking distance to the plant and the park behind that, where they shot off the fireworks.  My mom was too frail to take me to the park and it was raining that evening anyway.   Despite the rain, they decided to shoot the fireworks.  So we sat, me on her lap, in the cab of my dad's old truck, the rain hitting the window, watching the fireworks shooting up over the black outline of Owens-Illinois glass factory.  I was entranced by the pretty lights, but I didn't know till years later that my mom was crying, holding back tears that streamed down her face, because she thought that was going to be the last July 4th that she would ever spend with me.  She didn't think she would see me grow up.

How wrong she was!  God had other plans for my mom.  Not only did she see me grow up, she saw me graduate high school, college and Graduate school, get married, have a career and many other milestones.  So each year the 4th came around, it was another year she got to spend with the little girl in the truck all those years ago.  

Though God did eventually take my mom home this past year, and many of the holidays this year have been a struggle, I want to make this one the celebration its intended to be. 

Because this year, my mom is really living more than she ever did.  I miss her, but that isn't what I plan to think of. 

That's enough reason for fireworks in itself!