Sometimes something shocks you into the realization that life on this earth is, indeed, short and precious.
A sweet, sweet member of our congregation will be laid to rest tomorrow, and it’s sad to know that I won’t see that much-loved face across the church aisle ever again. Yet those of us who knew her – and shared our faith with her – understand that we’ll see her again in our heavenly home.
Meanwhile, the card I picked out for her last week sits on my office table, unaddressed, with no stamp, never to be mailed. I waited just a couple of days too long. Maybe she and I can share a smile one “day” in heaven, but for now, I just wish I had licked the stamp sooner.
Right before I began writing this column, I noticed that her name was still a part of my phone’s contact list, along with the names of several others who have departed this realm. That spurred me to look at my Facebook friends list – and 21 of those accounts are now unmanned.
It’s a sobering thought.
We who are still here need to take stock. We won’t be here forever – but we will be someplace forever. We are not like Rover, no matter how much some people cling to that idea.
Multiple lessons can be learned from observing our dwindling phone and Facebook lists. Perhaps this phenomenon should prod us to:
– Contact that friend whom you know is ill. Go for a visit. Make a luncheon engagement. Unlike me, send a card. What’s more, contact that friend who’s in perfect health but whom you haven’t seen in a while. Go ahead. Texting and email make it easy. Or better yet, let your fingers do the walking, and give them a ring.
– Hoist the flag of truce if you’re at odds with a family member. You don’t have to be their best friend or even totally like them or their actions. But we should love them and let them know that. Listen to I John 4:20: “If someone says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” Good question.
– Take to heart the lesson of this week’s burial, of my unsent card, and of those old Hank Williams’ lyrics: You can’t get out of this world alive. So we need to be prepared. But how do we do that?
There’s no other answer in this world that makes sense … but God. Not evolution. Not ancient aliens. Nothing. Nothing else makes sense.
Thankfully, this God – the Creator of the Universe – left us an instruction book. But how do we know it’s true, apart from faith?
In my estimation, the prophesies. We – you – can’t escape them. They undeniably speak to the truth of the scriptures. Events that were predicted centuries, sometimes millennia, beforehand came true just as prophesied, down to minute details. Even though skeptics raise objections to such things, those fulfilled prophesies can’t just all be fabricated; they can’t just all be coincidence. As many things point toward the scriptures’ truth as could possibly point away from it.
Prophecy is one of the main reasons for my belief.
If you’ve never studied the Messianic prophecies and if you’re not a believer, I urge you to do so. Many of the people who killed Jesus came to believe on the day the apostle Peter preached the first gospel sermon. Their hearts were broken when they understood what they had done, and they looked to Peter and the other apostles for guidance.
“What shall we do?” they asked.
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Three thousand people did this that very day.
No one could possibly do a more horrible thing than the people who crucified Jesus. But Peter told them there was a way out.
It’s a way out for you, too.
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Sallie Rose Hollis lives in Ruston and retired from Louisiana Tech as an associate professor of journalism and the assistant director of the News Bureau. She can be contacted at sallierose@mail.com.
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