For the sake of this article, I will call her
Kathy. While I did not know her well, I appreciated her intelligent perspectives on world
events and her compassion for the kids in
our church. She taught all three of our children, had a beautiful spirit and was exceptionally dedicated. She and her son would
often bring her guitar into the classroom and
play for the kids. At one point, she even composed a song to Psalm 121. After a family in
our church performed the song and recorded it during worship, she copied it onto CDs
and provided these to the children in her
class, many of whom since had memorized
the song or nearly so, including my daughter.
As I drove home last night, pondering the
news, the reality of her death started to sink
in.
I moved from the shock phase into
the realization that she was truly
gone from this earth.
There’s no question about where she is, she
knew her Lord well and is praising Him face
to face at this moment! My heart praised Him
as well and then moved from joy to grief
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again as my thoughts slipped to her husband, daughters and teenage son, left behind for a time to go on without her hand and
heart, not to mention all the Sunday School
kids. Would her husband, driving during the
accident, blame himself? How would her
children carry on without her in these pivotal
times of their lives? How would my wife and I
explain this to our children?
It was at this point the Holy Spirit swiftly took
my thoughts in a different direction. As He
often does, He “plunked” down into the midst
of my ruminations the truth that it could have
been me. Or my wife. Not one of us knows
when we will die, nor how.
I became aware that I tend to
live my days as if death is quite
distant, barely on the horizon.
I suppose this is primarily due to my age, but
people of all ages die every day. Understand,
this awareness doesn’t spark fear in my mind
as much as urgency. Each day is not just a
gift from the Lord; it’s an opportunity. An opportunity to follow Christ and give of myself
to