WHAT A YEAR 2011 WAS

1-2-2011

What A Year 2011 Was
I have great intentions to blog on a regular bases.
Where do the intentions go?
I have great intentions to teach the Gospel to many people.
I have great intentions to visit the sick.
Where have those intentions gone.
I have many good intentions to get more done to our home.
Where do the intentions go?
I look back over 2011 and I realize that many good intentions have gone undone.
However, It’s A Wonderful Life.
Rather than focusing on the intentions that never got done, I must say I did get somethings done and I will strive to do more for the year 2012.
It has started out to be a great year.
We had great friends in our home for a nice meal and a blessed visit on Thursday and Friday night.
Saturday night we had good food and fellowship with some of our church family.
Then as we were preparing to return home, Tommy received a call from his cousin’s wife to tell us that his Aunt had been moved to Hospice.
They were nearly to the hospital.
We gathered our things and headed to the hospital at 9:30 p.m. instead of going home to bed.
We asked the nurse which room Tommy’s aunt was in.
She replied “7103”.  
My heart sank and my eyes grew big and round.
I swallowed hard as we walked down the hall past the elevators.
I had a flood of memories fly through my mind. I could see the look on my Mom’s face as she was rolled into that very same room on the 3rd day of April 2007.
Hospice!! What kind of word is that?
It sounds like death to me.
It feels like death to me.
It means death to me.
Just a month earlier we had been to the same hospital, on the same floor but fortunately not the same room.
Tommy’s cousin’s wife’s father was there.
A different cousin and a different wife. But from the same blood line.
Good intentions, what does that mean.
It means you do what you have to do when you have to do it.
This particular night, six people came home with us at 12:30 A.M
We scrambled to make beds for each of them.
Tommy pulled the travel trailer in the yard and I gathered bedding to accommodate the young family with three small children.
Yes, we had to rearrange our life somewhat. The family whose Mom, Grandmother and Great Grandmother was just placed in Hospice had to rearrange their life a great lot.
Instead of celebrating a late Christmas, they loaded up in two cars and drove 6 hours to say Good-Bye the the Matriarch of the family.
She died exactly a week after she went to Hospice. Ironically at 12:30 A.M.
Yes Hospice means death but it does not mean the Victor.
Only Jesus Christ is the Victor and Victory over death.
I Corinthians 15:55
O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?
Verse 56  
The sting  of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
Verse 57
but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 58
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

HAPPINESS

What is happiness?
Is it the material  things we have?
Is it the friends we have?
Is it our families?  Is it good health?
True happiness is joy.
Joy does not come from our circumstances.
It comes from within our soul.
Job 5:17
“Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves,
So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
Psalm 51:12
Restore to me the joy of
Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit.


Why do We Need Organization in Our Lives?

We were expecting the delivery of a new King size bed.
 Tommy could not run his bulldozer one rainy day that week, so we decided it would be the perfect day to move our bed to the guest room. 
 
This made for perfect timing to move the old bed out to make room for the new bed.
I have been trying to get our home organized. 
I have neglected organizing our home for too long.
First we had to move the double sized bed out of the guest room.
It went in the living room, where it could not stay.
We moved the queen sized bed in to the guest bedroom.

The thought came to me more than once that all I am doing is just moving stuff from one room to the next with out dealing with it.
We have to move the old out to make room for what is good and right.

WHAT IS PERPETUAL CARE?

Maybe the Jack Rabbit is contemplating  the meaning of perpetual care.
The definition in Webster’s dictionary is:
1. lasting or enduring forever or for an indefinitely long time; eternal; permanent.
I went to do some perpetual care on my parents, grandmother and brother’s graves today.
I found the graves in a very unkempt manner.
I was upset because someone is supposed to keep the plot neat and tidy.
It was included in the burial plan.
My Mother was the one who made sure the perpetual care was lasting, enduring forever and for an indefinitely long time.
However, she cannot make sure it is done in an eternally or permanently way.
She cannot make sure it is done at all since she has left this world.
It dawned on me that the fact is, that job has been passed on to me.
Now it is up to me to see that the perpetual care of my family’s grave sites gets done.
The truth is that we are human and we fail.

God is not human and He never fails us.
He is our Perpetual Care taker.
He has promised us that He will take care of us and He has.

John 3:16

“”For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
What an awesome promise of perpetual care?
We do not have to be concerned with whether someone
will take care of us.
We have God’s promise that He has taken care of our perpetual care.
He gave His only Son to accomplish this.
Jesus is our lasting and enduring care.
Jesus will be our care forever, for an indefinitely long time; for eternity; and permanently.
Rest in His promises
The Peace That Passes all Understanding in a world gone wild.
Romans 8:28