I am so excited today to tell you that two of the long term care facilities where I visited have invited me to return the first week of May! It has been over 13 months of talking through closed doors (how does that work at your house?) Please pray that God holds this door open and that we all learn how this new opportunity will work.
For anyone interested in visiting in your community be sure to start by getting vaccinated and then gently and humbly asking the activities department how you may serve as a volunteer. These folks on staff have been through the mill over the last year and need plenty of encouragement and praise.
Devote yourselves to prayer, being thankful and watchful. And pray for us too that God may open a door to our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Colossians 4:2-3 NIV
WaitsPast the Door
He the Good Shepherd we must learn to trust
Through the valley of shadows and fears
His is the word and a rod and a staff
That comforts in weakness and fears
Then to His banqueting table prepared
Where a cup full of blessing awaits
While my enemies watch His sure mercy pours out
Jesus comes and He never forsakes
Last we will travel to Father’s own home
Where a place that He purchased is ours
He commands us fear not, enter in by its gate
There forever life waits past the door
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:2 KJV
Past the Door by Peter Caligiuri
copyright 2021 all rights reserved
Use by author's permission only
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2
It seems strange, though it shouldn’t at my age, to think that so many of my family and my friends have gone into eternity while I remain here. That sobering thought turns me to wondering what it will be like in my own last moments here and first moments before God. How brave will I be when I put my foot into the boat that will take me across God’s great river?
Though for the Christian there is no fear in death, it still seems so wrong – so unnatural – so contrary to the joy of life that is seated deep within our hearts no matter our age. One day it came to me; that, it feels unnatural because it is. God made us for life!
Everything in heaven is about life. Jesus is the way the truth and the LIFE. The words He spoke were Spirit and LIFE. He offers a a drink of LIVING water and whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal LIFE. There is nothing in God’s plan that has anything whatsoever to do with death. We must choose to live every day with our focus on life, because that is what He created us for. We may no longer be strong, but the strength of the life of Christ is greater in weakness. We might not be able to do certain things easily, but we can do all things through Christ. Then one day, in the words of the Apostle Paul, when death has been swallowed up in victory we will be changed from this life to the next. Depression and the fear of death lose their grip when we remember that Jesus has a life to give us that is more abundant and overflowing that we could ever imagine!
This wonderful video from the Mullett family is not just a well filmed piece – it is their story. Their son Austin passed away in 2010 after17 years of battling through one serious medical condition after another and yet they have turned their grief into a ministry of the joy of life that Jesus gives. I hope you will be as blessed as I was to watch. Maybe you will shed a happy tear when you are touched by the mystery of the joys and sorrows we pass through on the way to eternal life. Have a blessed week-end everybody!
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