The other day as we were leaving Costco, I noticed some Jesus pins on the Costco smock worn by the associate who was checking people’s carts. I said, “I like your pins! My favorite saying is, What would we do without Jesus?”
“Oh yes!” she said, her face brightening. “Thank you, Sister. You’re my sister in Christ!”
As we walked away, I called back to her, “I’ll see you in heaven!”
She waved and responded, “Yes, see you in heaven!”
I felt like I’d had just a little foretaste of the family feeling we’ll have when we reach the place that God has prepared for us.
That evening when we took our walk, we met our friend, Jenny.* Donn and I were holding hands as we usually do, and Jenny, who has had several unhappy marriages, said, “It makes me so happy to see people like you who are married. Please don’t ever split up.”
I smiled and said, “We always say, Jesus is the glue that holds us together.”
“Well, we wouldn’t say that in England where I’m from because we don’t talk about Jesus. I just talk to God.”
If this were our first conversation, I wouldn’t have responded as I did; but since we’d had many conversations, I said, “Well then you have a problem because Jesus said He’s the only way to God, the only way to heaven.”
Jenny flipped her hand, “Oh, I don’t want to go to heaven.”
“I don’t think you’d like the alternative.”
“I just want to be cremated and have my ashes spread to float around helping people.” Jenny had told us this before.
“Even if you’re cremated, Jenny, you still have only two choices where you’ll go when you die. Heaven or hell.”
“Well, I’m in hell now,” Jenny asserted.
I shook my head. “It might seem like it, but this isn’t hell.”
Jenny went on to tell us again about all the bad things happening in her life. I consoled her saying, “I’m so sorry about all the hard things you’re going through. We’re praying for you.”
Please pray with us that Jenny would come to know Jesus in a personal way and allow Him to bear her burdens.
A week or so later, when we took Sarah to Riverside Park in Greenville, she said, “Oh I’ve missed this park.”
I had missed it too even though it hadn’t been a bad winter. I put the bag that held my cushion and my IPad on a bench and went to play with Sarah. Later when Donn took over with Sarah, I walked back to the bench. I had forgotten that at 5:00, Casting Crowns would start singing Only Jesus from my IPad to remind me that I needed to take a pill. If no one stopped them, they’d sing Only Jesus almost forever!
A man who had sat down beside my bag said, “I’m enjoying your music.”
I said, “I’m so glad you like my music!”
The man responded, “I really like Elevation Worship too.”
I nodded, then explained. “Believe it or not, I had this IPad probably five years before I realized I could set alarms with music instead of just a regular alarm. I added, “One of my favorites right now is If I’ve God Jesus, I’ve got it all.
I told him about looking down and seeing my deceased son’s name come up on my phone screen just as Ben Fuller was singing Take the world away from me and I’ll be okay. “I felt like it was a message from the Lord, saying Yes, I took the world away from your son but he’s okay.”
“How did you come to know the Lord?” I asked him.
“I was raised Catholic but had drifted away and didn’t like the things happening in the church. One of our friends started telling us about the church she went to and said we should come. My wife wanted to go, and I thought it might be a good idea. So we went.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“We’re getting so much out of the sermons, and our children are learning so much!”
Soon the man’s wife and baby daughter and Donn joined us. (Sarah had gotten involved with playing hide and seek with some other children.) We introduced ourselves, and we all laughed about Donn and me being Daisy and Donald Duck!
Eventually we discovered they live in Hermitage but had come to this park to have a family picture taken by a photographer in Greenville the day before. Their boys were devastated that they didn’t have time to play that day so they came back today.
What were the chances that they just “happened” to come back when we were there for the first time since last summer. Sarah had said, “I want to go to the playground with the green slides!” God is so amazing.
Even though we’d just met, when we parted it was like parting from old friends. If we never see them again here, I believe we’ll meet them in heaven! How I love the conversations the Holy Spirit prompts with believers as well as unbelievers by having us at the right place at the right time.
Give us ears to hear the still, small voice of your Spirit, Father, to be guided and directed in the paths you want us to follow as you give us opportunities to be blessed or to be a blessing. Amen.
*Name changed.
Health Update
So yesterday was the last day of my 30-day heart monitor. Believe me, I was more than ready to be done! I was so tired of trying to remember to carry the monitor around with me everywhere I went and the sensor had to be changed with a new patch every five days. My skin under the patch was becoming very irritated by the last change, and we had to move it into a different position. Because of that, it apparently wasn’t as stable.
Tuesday night at 12:00 a.m. (actually very early Wednesday morning), we were awakened by a loud ringing noise. I thought I’d set an alarm by mistake, but it was my monitor! I had forgotten to plug it in to recharge, so I thought that was the problem. I grabbed it and since there was no message on the screen, I just plugged it in. At 12:40 a.m., we were awakened by the same loud ringing noise. This time when I grabbed my monitor, the message said something like “Electrodes aren’t connected. Resolve.” I pressed on the Resolve button, but it went back to the home screen with no instructions on how to Resolve!
I turned on the light and called customer assistance and was given the message that they were experiencing an extra heavy load of calls, and I might experience a long wait. I groaned and relayed the message to Donn who said, “At 12:40 in the morning?!” However, the wait was actually short. In the meantime, I’d been pressing on parts of the sensor and apparently had “Resolved” the issue myself! The pleasant operator walked me through checking it and confirmed that it was connected again! I went out and slept on the couch but there were no more alarms that night.
I’ve been having a lot of either palpitations or atrial flutters off and on, but I don’t know when I’ll receive any information. I was told that there was someone observing the input from the monitor 24 hours a day, and if the something very severe was going on, my doctor would have been contacted. My doctor hasn’t contacted me, so I suppose in this situation, no news is good news.
Thank you so much for your prayers!