When my mother passed away a couple of months ago, people expressed their love and sympathy in a variety of ways. The following is a poem written by a family friend Utah Humphrey.
Verna Stilley
10-21-08
The road God gave you was a very steep climb,
But you bravely went forward day by day.
Clyde was the hero ministering to you
Being there to help you in the part he would play.
Now the long journey has come to an end
And on Earth you won’t suffer any more.
In Heave you are finally free at last
With this freedom you finally can soar.
I remember the years you became my friend
With lots of laughter I still can behold.
The tears I shed now will soon be gone
As I ponder your life as I saw it unfold.
Poor Clyde was often the key to your stories
And his face would turn red as he grinned.
In the room you would have everyone laughing
And through the years you did it again and again.
Leach and Cardin one entered a contest
And when it was over Leach had won.
We met at the camp grounds at GLBA
To fellowship and have lots of fun..
You were the pitcher when we played softball
And I don’t remember who won or who lost.
Both churches had added people to Sunday School
Without either group adding up th ecost.
The years seemed to pass by much too quickly
And retirement years had finally come about.
The price you paid in the last several years
Didn’t carry a lot of laughter or clout.
Please enjoy Heaven and the freedom you have.
We will all be joining you in just a little while.
I wished we could look into Heaven and see you now
With a life filled with laughter and a beautiful smile.
By faith we must keep walking onward toward Heaven
Knowing life down here for us is not through …
Sometimes we will pause during our journey
And when we do we’ll be thinking of you.
Good bye precious friend for just a while longer
And enjoy your new life absolutely free from pain.
We will see you tomorrow on Heaven’s bright shore
Where there’ll be plenty of sunshine without rain.
A friend in Christ,
Utah Humphrey
I hope to buy stock in this company before they start making their product available to NASCAR fans.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Baseball fanatics won’t have to leave behind their beloved teams when they finally go to that big stadium in the sky. Instead, they’ll soon be able to rest in peace inside a coffin with team colors and insignia.
Major League Baseball has a marketing deal with a company called Eternal Image. It’ll put team logos on caskets and urns. The effort begins next season with the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Phillies, Cubs and Dodgers. It could eventually include all 30 teams.
Each urn will be stamped with a message saying Major League Baseball officially recognizes the deceased as a lifelong fan of that team.
After starting with baseball, Eternal Image hopes to branch out by making similar deals with the NFL, the NHL and NASCAR. MORE
I was away last week for my mother’s funeral so my work email has stacked up a bit. While sorting through my email and trying to clean out some old stuff I came across the following story which someone had sent to me some time ago. It made me think of the beautiful passage of comfort found in John 14 so I share it with you here.
~DEATH~
A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to
Leave the examination room and said,
‘Doctor, I am afraid to die.
Tell me what lies on the other side.’
Very quietly, the doctor said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? You, a Christian man,
Do not know what is on the other side?’
The doctor was holding the handle of the door;
On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining,
And as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room
And leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.
Turning to the patient, the doctor said,
‘Did you notice my dog?
He’s never been in this room before.
He didn’t know what was inside.
He knew nothing except that his master was here,
And when the door opened, he sprang in without fear.
I know little of what is on the other side of death,
But I do know one thing…
I know my Master is there and that is enough.’
Do you believe in reincarnation? Why or why not?
Share your answers in the comments below.
Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.
C.S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy, and Aldous Huxley all died within just a few hours of each other. Peter Kreeft explores their worldviews through an imaginary conversation held “on the other side.” Well worth the read!
It is said that when Truman Capote died Gore Vidal commented, “Good career move.”
Maybe that is a bit crassly stated, but frequently the death of an author will result in a tremendous upsurge in book sales. Not only that, but sometimes posthumous works multiply. Consider the list of posthumous books by Ernest Hemingway (source: Casanova Was A Book Lover
A Moveable Feast (1964)
The Fifth Column and Four Unpublished Stories of the Spanish Civil War (1969)
Island in the Stream (1970)
The Nick Adams Stories (1972)
Along With Youth: Hemingway, the Early Years (1985)
The Dangerous Summer (1985)
Ernest Hemingway: Dateline Toronto (1985)
The Garden of Eden ( 1986)
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition (1987)
Hemingway: The Toronto Years (1994)
The Good Lion (1998)
At the Hemingways: with Fifty Years of Correspondence between Ernest and Marcelline Hemingway (1999)
True at First Light (1999)
[A few of the above are either biographies or collections that contain previously unpublished materials.]
Wow, Ernest Hemingway published more after he was dead than most of us will during our lifetime.
I recently received an email from a friend inquiring if I could help her locate a book. I spent several decades in one way or another related to the book industry so inquiries such as this are pretty common. In this instance, she was looking for a hardback copy of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek which was suitable to be given as a gift. She had been searching for awhile without success.
For some reason, her inquiry made me think of Brian Courthorpe Hunt. It is said that he shot himself to death in the London Library when he learned that the second volume of a book he was reading was unavailable. Such a story makes me really throw myself into the task when asked by a friend to help them locate a book.
Hopefully you have never considered actions in any way similar to those of Brian Courthorpe Hunt. But, I am curious, have you ever found yourself frustrated by an inability to locate a book for which you were searching. Prior to the popularity of the internet it once took me several years to locate the book Our Man In Damascus. And, currently I have not been able to locate a copy of a book which I think was entitled Hills of Home which is a photo-journalistic look at some of my kinfolk in Arkansas.
What about you?
Over the weekend I had a long talk with my children about why we observe Memorial Day. We do not celebrate the death of anyone but remember and honor their sacrifice. Life is sacred, to lay it down for the benefit of others is worthy of remembrance and honor.
So, for what would you die? Family? Friends? Your country? Freedom? Truth?
Once we admit that there are causes for which it would be appropriate to die, we acknowledge that there are things more important than life, and that death is not the greatest evil — that suffering and death can have great meaning and purpose. The question is often asked why a good God would allow suffering, the implication being that God must either be not good or not powerful enough to prevent it. No, that does not follow. That reasoning is specious. Once we acknowledge that there are things to be valued more greatly than life and comfort we can not put an all-knowing God into the dock. He can allow the unpleasant, for reasons that are meaningful and good.
The death of Jesus of Nazareth exhibits this reasoning. The murder of the only righteous man was a great evil, and yet the event is full of meaning and purpose. Jesus is our propitiation - He is our mercy seat.
I encourage you to think upon Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3 as an appropriate follow-up to the observance of our national Memorial Day.
Reason is our Soules left hand,
Faith is her right, …
