Thursday, October 12, 2006

Some say...

Some say... "Green Acres is the place for me."
Jesus said... "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Some say... "The Golden Rule: The one with the most gold wins."
Jesus said... ""Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Some say... "Don't get stuck on Heaven."
Paul said... "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."

(The following is from an email I sent to my parents tonight)

Hi, family!!!

THANKS for talking to me tonight! It's so good to hear from y'all! When I was hanging up, I was thinking -- if I didn't know better, I would think that somehow the phone links me to another universe...
It's just because I've used a phone so many times without thinking about how it works that I don't marvel at the WAY it works! Who would have ever guessed that radio waves could be "trained" to wander down wires?

One of the speakers who was here a few weeks ago made the point that ANYTHING can be interesting, once you start studying it. (I agree, to a point). As he said, you could spend a long time on -- peanut butter!

That's pretty close to what Carver did, though he started from the peanut. And look at all he could do with that!

Sometimes when Grandpa was sick I would wish I knew more about the disease, and could do SOMETHING to help him. He was so curious about anything and everything medical, so at one point I took my anatomy book up to the hospital and showed him some of the pictures out of it. It was a pretty good-sized book, but he propped it up and studied the diagrams of the lung very carefully! (I remember how strong his arms were!)

I really do miss Grandma and Grandpa. Sometimes something will remind me of Grandma or Grandpa, and I'll just start thinking about them. I AM SO GLAD that they are safe with Christ. This might sound silly, but if you think about the Aggravation game, it's a pretty good picture of life. You go through life, and it's hard to get started. It seems like you keep rolling the wrong number. It doesn't help that everyone around you seems to be rolling those right numbers and hop-skip-jumping their way to a career. Finally, you start your plugging. If you can get several things rolling at once, all the better, as long as you keep track of them! Then there's the star-path, which is doubly hard to get landed in! Just at the point when
you start making it somewhere, somebody lands on you and you're back at the start trying to get on a roll. But the best thing about this picture is that once you're finished, there is no reincarnation. Once your marble's made it all the way around the board (whether by the long plugging path or the quick star-path), you're finished. No one can land on you and send you
back to circle-one.

All that to say -- Grandma and Grandpa have finished their race. Now they're part of the "cloud of witnesses." Can you imagine the people they're able to meet now? Grandpa was calling or interested in calling some of the influential people on earth -- Rush Limbaugh, etc. But now he's meeting people face-to-face. He's meeting people like Moses and Francis
Schaeffer and Adam. Maybe they sit and talk, or maybe they talk while they build buildings. Or maybe they have an entirely different project, that's totally beyond what I can think of.

I don't know if there's crocheting in Heaven, but I can see Grandma making afghan squares. But maybe I'm not thinking big enough -- maybe she's designing tapestries to decorate some of Heaven's walls! Anyway -- she's not wearing her glasses anymore. She's not taking any insulin either. She MIGHT still have peppermints in her big black, purse, though. But are there purses in Heaven when there's not any money?

I wonder what it was like when Grandma got to meet Granny and Beth and Grandma Carrie again. It had to be so hard to say goodbye to them on this side, but it must be SO GLORIOUS to see them again when Christ is there and He has made ALL things new.

Grandpa is able to chat with Uncle Wilton. They can pull up a chair and talk to their mom and dad anytime.

Grandma, Grandpa, Granny -- they don't need an airplane anymore.

But as great as all THIS is (and I'm sure it's wonderful!), the greatest thing is that their KING is there. Instead of relying on letters that have been read, reread, circled, highlighted, and loved, they can talk to their king face-to-face. Grandma can see the One she loved so much. Grandpa can walk with the One who gave His all.

It must be Heavenly.

Hannah

--
You are my lamp, O Lord;
the Lord turns my darkness into light.

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