Early Celebration

This morning I hurried to visit a friend that needed some help. What a surprise, when I walked out the door, to see rain lightly falling. It felt like spring.

I looked out the window later that morning and wondered if there was snow in the air..it seemed like there was a change out there. Mom called to warn me of the ice. She had taken her garbage out and had fallen twice on the ice. After the first fall she wasn't going to give up-- she was going to get her garbage out. She then fell again before she managed to get it in the garbage receptacle. She did not get hurt.

I left my friend's condo about 10 and went down the back stairs of the condo complex, cutting across the grass to the sidewalk. The moment I set my foot down on the sidewalk I began to slide across the walk on one leg, with arms flying outward trying to get a balance. It had LOOKED wet, but it was a solid sheet of ice. I stopped in an upward position and gingerly and cautiously crossed the street to my pickup. Driving slowly, I got home and drove right up next to the garage door. The drive was a sheet of ice. I held the door and took a huge step to the grass and walked up the lawn.

Then over to Mom's. My brother came down for an early Christmas celebration, since he couldn't make it on Christmas Day. Before getting there, he picked up some ice melt for Mom's sidewalks. NOW, it is time for our first Christmas dinner this year. My 2nd cousin, who is Mom's age, came over and we enjoyed a wonderful ham dinner with everyone taking time out for a lot of teasing. It was fun! Mom loved having everyone's company.

As years pass, time seems to lose a foothold in our lives. It sifts through our lives, as sand through our fingers, making memories of the moments spent together. We come to realize that, soon, what we have today will be gone forever. Nothing remains in this life, only the blessed HOPE that we have--to spend eternity with the Lord, in a new and beautiful world where all things are new. And our hope that those we love will be there too.

"Revelation 21:1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'

"5 Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'

"6 And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'
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"22 (The Glory of the New Jerusalem) But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day. 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life."