My Easter Miracle

It seems that this year in particular I have a new group of readers so it may be that my testimony is new to you. I have also trimmed it back considerably trying to keep to my own rule of less is better. So here goes the 2021 re-telling of my Easter Miracle. I am forever grateful to God that He could have worked out such a crazy plan at the cost of His only Son’s life so that I could be His child.

 I realise that I was the worst of them all, and that because of this very fact God was particularly merciful to me. It was a kind of demonstration of the extent of Christ’s patience towards the worst of men, to serve as an example to all who in the future should trust him for eternal life. 1 Timothy 1:16 Phillips

In 1971 I was just another 19 year old hippie trying to figure life out. One night I found myself along a lonely stretch of desert highway between L.A. and Phoenix. All that day I had hitch-hiked with my last ride dropping me off at a rest area.  As night began to fall I reasoned that the top of one of the picnic tables was the safest refuge from snakes and scorpions. So I rolled out my sleeping bag and struggled into it trying not to fall off the edge of the table. There I lay looking up into a vast sky filled with stars wondering where I belonged and fell asleep.

How in the world I ended up 3,000 miles from home was a tangle of events beginning with parents who seemed more confused about life than I was. So I moved out on my own at age seventeen about began a wandering that brought me that Easter morning to a highway rest stop where I met a family who invited me to church. It took a miracle to break through my fears and excuses and regrets; but it was Easter morning and on Easter miracles happen. So with the added bonus of a promised free meal I eagerly agreed to go with them.

Their church was different than anything I expected. There were many young people there my own age who were singing with smiles that showed me they knew something about Easter I had missed. More importantly that day, I felt for the first time that God might be real and actually care about me. It felt to me as if I had been running all my life and I couldn’t run any more. It took an amazing chain of miracles to bring me to God. But it was Easter and on Easter miracles happen!

Made For Life

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!

Coming As We Are

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

This is the video version of my post from yesterday where I shared about my dad’s beauty shop. I do the video because once a week I prepare a devotional newsletter which I send in to two different nursing homes where I once visited and this video gives them some music to go along with their lesson. The newsletter version is usually shorter than what I post here because it all has to fit on one page in print large enough for my dear friends to read. I pray that you will also be blessed as I share a few songs along with the thought for the week. “Come to Jesus; just as you are” He is calling and waiting for you.

Here in the Tampa Bay area it is “Florida cold” but our family up North is having tons of fun shoveling white stuff which we don’t miss a bit! Have a blessed Tuesday wherever you are!

This is from our son’s house up north of Philly