Sunset

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I sat and watched the sunset from my car in the Meijer's parking lot. The sun was a beautiful ball of orange against the gradated blue sky dotted with pink back-lit clouds. I felt so small. What is man that you are mindful of him? And then the religious training kicked in and I thought, it is because he is in us in our spirits - we are made in his image after all. We are little divine beings walking around on this rock in the corner of the universe. That should be empowering and humbling at the same time.

 Now my reading turns to the sunset of our lives.  I am reading Max Lucado and he is talking about death.  I think it is important to consider our own human frailty... the great equalizer: we will all die sooner or later.  The pastor at a church I visited this morning joked that the death rate in America is 100%. It is an undeniable part of existence that at some point, we will cease to be.  But does the story end there?  Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that there is anything else, and I have been closer to death than many people. (I was in a coma, on life support for 3 days, and then I came back, unscathed.) But Jesus reassures us on the night before his own death. "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father's house; I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am." (John14:1-4) The amplified bible says "Do not let your heats be troubled, distressed or agitated. Believe and adhere to and trust in and rely on God."

 I shall endeavor to believe in Jesus' words.  I have no facts to support this, but there are no facts to support the theory that there is nothing after this life.  So, for my own sanity, and to better my life in the here and now, I choose to believe Jesus.  (God give me faith to believe.) You may feel that this is a cop out, That I am using my religion as a crutch to give me peace.  Well religion is not a crutch, I heard one pastor say, it is a whole heart and lung machine.  It changes you from the inside so you experience life differently as a changed person.

 Once I made up my mind to choose, and prayed for the faith to believe, God reiterated the image Jesus gave us, that there are many rooms in the fathers house, and he goes there first to prepare a place for us.  This brings me great comfort and I hope that this image will stay with me for the rest of my life.

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