May 2022 has certainly been a month of highs and lows, joys and sorrows! We started out the month on a joyous high. With our covered dish meal and silent auction back on Sunday, May 1st, we enjoyed a wonderful time of food and fellowship. Several parishioners remarked how good it is that we are finally getting back to some degree of normalcy. I, for one, have missed our Homestead ladies, and men’s, delicious home cooking. Hopefully, as things progress, we can be back to normal.
The end of the month brought great sorrow to the parsonage and pastoral family as we experienced the loss of a grandson’s best friend and “brother” in a motorcycle accident. Anthony had spent much time in all our family’s homes and was considered family even though there was no blood connection.
Life does not always promise to be a “bed of roses,” does it? As happy as our hearts were at the beginning of May, we were just as disheartened at the end of May. But it reminds us once again that our eternal hope does not reside here on this earth, but instead our eternal home is in heaven where we shall live forever and ever with those who have gone ahead of us.
But sometimes I must remind myself that the things of this earth are only temporary anyway. James the Apostle wrote that we have no promise of life continuing on earth. He writes, “whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. (James 4:14)
Consequently, if we have no promise of tomorrow here, then we must look to the promise of something in the afterlife- the eternal if you will. For this promise, we need look no further than the Apostle Paul’s writings in Philippians 3:20-21. “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that
enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
Doesn’t that send a thrill through your body and soul? The effects of aging are catching up with many of us quickly. Yet, we have not only the promise of eternal life with our brother Jesus (since we are heirs and joint heirs with Him), but we also have the promise of eternal life with those we have loved here on earth. And, if that isn’t enough, that life will be
lived throughout all eternity (whatever that means) with a brand-new body free of all the aches and pains we feel now.
So, let’s try to take our focus off the troubles we experience in life. Let’s RE-focus on the wonderful life that Jesus has gone to prepare for us in Heaven! Can I get a witness? Amen.