Tuesday, January 21, 2014

ELEVATION NORTH has NEWS for YOU!


CHERISHED MOMENTS.  Many years ago one of our friends, Lowell Lundstrom, wrote a song by that title, and as young kids at home, my siblings and I learned to play it on the piano and we memorized all of the words so we could sing it together.  The words were powerful ~ simply a message about “what I’d give if I could live life one more time … I’d cherish every moment that was mine!”  I guess we think a little more about how we are living OUR lives when someone we love is taken Home to be with the Lord.  Our family never dreamed that soon after the new year, our lives would be changed so quickly with Mom Jones’ sudden hospitalization and ultimately her Home-going just five days later.  With the realization that doctors and medicine can offer nothing more, eternity zooms in much closer than usual.  Watching your loved one struggle with life’s final battle with pain, your mind and heart runs a new assessment on the options.  There was a part of our hearts that longed for her to be well and whole and healed on this side of heaven, but when God’s Spirit within lets you know – this time, it’s His time –  we knew it was time to embrace whatever His best for Mom was.  And as the hours ticked by, we could sense she was getting nearer to her Lord and the heavenly home she was longing to go to!  We knew the years of suffering had been long and not at all easy… so with glory now in view, how could we hold her here?  Jesus was waiting!  Her husband was heading to the gates!  Her mom and dad and a host of others would be standing nearby.  What a welcoming party awaited her!  As she breathed her last, easily and softly … that moment came.  That defining moment that ends our life here on earth ~ and begins our forever life with our Lord and Savior!  In the stillness of that moment, there’s a beauty about the death of a child of God, unlike others.  In those last moments, the struggle is no more; only sweet release and peace.  As if by a magic pen, the constricted muscles and wrinkles fade away … and we see a beautiful lady who has fought the good fight with a strong faith in her God who was with her every day of her life.  Here, she is quiet and still, and within minutes she looks years younger!  But up there ~ just imagine her in heaven!  Tears come, joyful tears at the knowledge that she is now completely whole and healed – with not even a memory of the pain suffered here on earth!  We can smile through our tears, because she is with Jesus … more alive and happy and free than she has ever been in her 81 years on this earth!  We picture her moving freely and swiftly o’er those golden streets, running here and there through flower-laden meadows,  We see her and dad walking now hand in hand, neither with any of the limitations that took their health captive for so long.  Her crippled, twisted, arthritic hands – now smooth and straight and painless!  She can use them to do a myriad of beautiful things in this new life of hers that will never end!  Can you imagine?  She can once again write songs with music and lyrics to praise her Lord as she gazes on His face of love; and these new songs will outshine any she ever wrote on earth!  Oh, I could go on and on – for how can we ever still our imaginations of what being in heaven must be like!  From time to time, the realities of this old world remind us of the sadness we feel without Mom here with us.  Yet, that is far overshadowed by the hope of that sweet reunion with her someday when we hear God call our name!  Now, it is our turn to rise to the privilege of being known as the older generation.  We will not shrink from its duties or struggles – we will embrace its God-given opportunities to impact our generations who follow us.  We will take up the torch of our loved ones now with Jesus, and stand in the gap praying even more for our children and their children, for every generation God allows us to see and be a part of!  As God’s children, may we not have to wish that we could live our lives again.  Let’s live the lives that God has given us, by His Spirit, power, and anointing – and all the while, cherishing every moment that we have with our loved ones on this earth!  Thank you, Mom, for being “you” ~ we will see you in heaven someday soon!


REMEMBER . . . We are really, truly, just traveling through this world.  Listen to this . . .

“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.”

~ Philippians 3:20-21


Serving Christ Joyfully . . .


Pastor Doug and Debbie







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