On the Reading of Obituaries
Man knows not his time.
I've made a strange habit this week. I started reading the obituary column of my local newspaper. Every day, a few more people vaporize into NOTHING, as far as we are concerned. Old people die every day. And three or four times this week, a child or young person died. That especially seized my heart. I expect to die when I'm old, and I expect to be old soon. But think. A car crash happens tomorrow, and suddenly I'm no one. Not important any more--except in a few shades of memories.
So thank God for HIMSELF! When I've done what God wants me to do, I'll go Home. Nothing random, nothing sudden, nothing tragic. I'll go when I'm supposed to go, after finishing exactly what I'm supposed to finish. God always has the best for me.
In the meantime, a Christian can use the death column as a call to pray for the world around. Rejoice when you read about a Christian finishing his race. Pray for the souls of the survivors. All the relatives of the dead, Christian or not, need special prayer. Tragedy can drive them to seek Christ. Even when one doesn't know anything about the person, a LOT can be deduced from the language of the report and the information that it contains. All you need is a shred to pray on.
What an opportunity!
And here's a verse to look up:
Heb. 2:14-17
On a different note, we had shrimp for dinner. Out of all the bunch of us, only my mom, dad, and I liked it. I've been studying crustaceans in biology, and once I started finding actual anatomical pieces of shrimp in my dinner, I wouldn't eat any more of it either. I LOVE cocktail sauce, and suspect that is the only reason I eat shrimp at all. That stuff is the best. Mmm.
I've made a strange habit this week. I started reading the obituary column of my local newspaper. Every day, a few more people vaporize into NOTHING, as far as we are concerned. Old people die every day. And three or four times this week, a child or young person died. That especially seized my heart. I expect to die when I'm old, and I expect to be old soon. But think. A car crash happens tomorrow, and suddenly I'm no one. Not important any more--except in a few shades of memories.
So thank God for HIMSELF! When I've done what God wants me to do, I'll go Home. Nothing random, nothing sudden, nothing tragic. I'll go when I'm supposed to go, after finishing exactly what I'm supposed to finish. God always has the best for me.
In the meantime, a Christian can use the death column as a call to pray for the world around. Rejoice when you read about a Christian finishing his race. Pray for the souls of the survivors. All the relatives of the dead, Christian or not, need special prayer. Tragedy can drive them to seek Christ. Even when one doesn't know anything about the person, a LOT can be deduced from the language of the report and the information that it contains. All you need is a shred to pray on.
What an opportunity!
And here's a verse to look up:
Heb. 2:14-17
On a different note, we had shrimp for dinner. Out of all the bunch of us, only my mom, dad, and I liked it. I've been studying crustaceans in biology, and once I started finding actual anatomical pieces of shrimp in my dinner, I wouldn't eat any more of it either. I LOVE cocktail sauce, and suspect that is the only reason I eat shrimp at all. That stuff is the best. Mmm.
posted by Unknown at 4:37 PM
1 Comments:
Maybe I told you this story before, but your bit about death reminded me of it... Once someone told me about an old friend of theirs who was poor and lonely and very elderly. She was too weak to get about much, so she spent all her days sitting in her rocking chair, listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, and praying about the news items that she heard or read. She longed to "go home", but her friend told her that God was keeping her here because of her constancy in prayer- that she was needed because there are so few people who pray the way she did. This same friend told me that the old woman was found dead some weeks later, sitting in her chair, with the radio on.... Home at last.
Post a Comment
<< Home