Saturday, November 8, 2008

All Gone

Been thinking a lot about death lately. I have been watching loved ones die. I must say that Jesus has made it quite alright. The word of God simply shines with the truth of the nature of death and if you choose to allow the Word to live in your life you will look forward to passing from death unto life. Here are a few disciplines that have help me in the process.
  1. Talk and walk with Jesus. Every event and relationship in this fleeting life will be fulfilling when shared with Him.
  2. Do not waste precious time in a futile attempt to escape the inevitable. The process is in God's hands and when the body is incapable of maintaining you within it God is calling you to Himself. Fly to Him.
  3. Be present with your beloved when the Lord calls them home. You will be rewarded with understanding and the closure.
  4. When you are left behind resolve to honor your loved one and bring glory to God with the remainder of your own time.
  5. Do not seek distractions from the experience of death and separation. Embrace the sorrow and experience God's Joy in the midst of that sorrow. Acknowledge your fears and be comforted by the peace that passes human understanding. Visit the places that you shared and remember them.
  6. Cry
  7. Praise God and rejoice with the host of heaven your loved one is home and is rejoicing.
  8. Get ready to be reunited, life is flying by!
Today my mother and I stopped by the place my father worked for the later part of his time here.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
It to is going away and the building he worked in for more than 30 years is no longer standing. Looking at the ruble and dust my mother made the comment through tears that the dust and rock fragment were no different in appearance to the ashes we received from the funeral home.
Gen 3:19  In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
We stopped at the Coffee Cup Restaurant and ate within feet of the booth we used to sit in as a family.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
Vaughn Parades Inc., Festive Floats, Gasparilla.
Each time I am in a place we once shared I am strengthen and able to grieve more. My father has been healed and made whole. My fathers time here has past I am living my time. The world my father knew is passing and many of the places, people and thing he knew are all gone. I can now bring him honor and live a life fitting to his training. Thousands of people are as you read coming and going between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God our Father. It is a awesome cosmos Yahweh has created. Live the life abundant to live is Christ to die is Gain! 

3 comments:

  1. Billy, your words of wisdom and transparency comfort me/us in our time of loss tonight as well. Thank you for your quiet ministering to so many.
    -Shanon

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  2. Praise God for our church family and for the time He gives us here together. It is both a day of sorrow and a day of celebration!

    And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
    Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
    I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
    Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
    At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. John 14:16-20

    And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
    In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Job 1:21-22

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  3. So good, Billy. So wise. And we tend not to be wise in our actions and thoughts. To discern what really matters...and choose that over what does not...that is the challenge.

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