The God of the Living
I arrived home safely from Grand Junction. Thanks again to Charlie Simineo for traveling with me to get me there and back and helping me over the past three days. This morning before our return trip I helped host a Rocky Mountain Energy Forum webinar. The event went well and I appreciate all those who participated.
Before I left the final service of the District Council meeting last night, I got a picture with two of my friends from Greeley. Charles Hefton and Pastor Michael Popineau from Greeley First Assembly. I value the friendship of these two men and their help in getting me upright for the picture.
On the way home Charlie found and let me read through his wife’s memorial bulletin that contained some excerpts from her CaringBridge posts. It was a great summary of her journey with cancer that finally took her life on July 25, 2013. Charlie and Margie attended the University of Northern Colorado when Debbie and I were there. Margie was a devoted educator, wife and mother. When I think of these two, I’m not sure I have known a couple that possessed the success and influence in their careers as Charlie and Margie. They both excelled in their contributions in their chosen fields, Charlie in health care and Margie in education. Margie began as a classroom teacher and ended her career as a School Superintendent.
However, some of the greatest lessons she learned and taught were during the final 31 months of her life. I was challenged just in reading some of the highlights of what she shared. Margie has a CaringBridge site as well at www.caringbridge.org/visit/margiesimineo
I may share some of her insights in future blogs and would encourage you to check to check out her posts as well. Individuals like Margie who face with such courage and fortitude a terminal illness have important lessons for us all. I believe what she has written can be part of her lasting legacy as an educator and woman of great faith.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “…have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living….” Mark 12:26,27
When I read these verses a few weeks ago they struck me differently than I had ever read them before. For some reason the idea of seeing life from the perspective of eternity and not the orientation here on earth came across more pronounced. Perhaps that was because of my own experiences the past nine months.
Some Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking a question about a man who had six brothers. When one brother died she married the next, he died she married the next and on it went. (I would have been nervous to be have been brothers four through seven!) At any rate they asked Jesus in heaven, whose wife will she be, all seven had her as a wife.
Jesus basically let them know that they were imposing an earthly view of life onto heaven. He tried to get them to see a heavenly view of life on earth. In God’s eyes all those who have ever lived in Him are still alive. Whether Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or your loved one. I know that we understand that issue from the fact that our loved ones are “with the Lord.” Also, there is great pain and loss when they leave life on earth. There is pain in separation, there are questions, and there is loneliness. But I am thankful it is for a season, for a “night” and there is “joy that comes in the morning.”
Certainly grief should not be hastened. In my recovery they tell me that for every day in bed that I need to anticipate 4-5 days of recovery. That makes me wonder if there is a correlation between years together and the pain experienced when a spouse dies. So my prayer is that while our feet are firmly planted on earth, that we will have the perspective of heaven. And as we ask the Lord to make that perspective our focus that lives one earth will be strengthened and faith will remain strong in Him who is the God of the living.