Thursday, January 24, 2008

 

Dejunk our Life Series

 

John 14: 2 “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.”  

 

Harp Music

 

Royce, the old hand at my grandparent’s farm said to me, “I hope you like harp music.”  I asked, “Harp music?”  Royce said, “Yep…….if you get in the pasture with old Sam again……and he don’t get you, I will!”   Old Sam was the prime breeding bull on the farm.  I liked to tease him so that he would chase me and I would dive under the fence to make him mad.  Royce said, “If he gets you with his horns he will see to it that a little feather of a boy like you will be playing harp music!   If I see you pull that stunt again I will make sure that you will be learning harp music myself!  Either way boy, you will be playing harp music.”  I knew Royce was mad and he felt that my actions were both dangerous and foolish.  

 

I said, “I am sorry Mr. Royce. I will never do it again….Will you please accept my apology?  He smiled and said, “Come here boy.”  He grabbed me and put me over his shoulder as high as he could and said, “You are too much trouble and I am going to throw you in the pasture with Old Sam myself.

 

As he held me over the pasture, my Grandmother came around the chicken house and saw him holding me in a seemingly dangerous position over the pasture with Old Sam close to the fence.   Grandmother began running and yelling and I thought it would be Royce that would be playing harp music.  

 

The truth is we are all going to die.  Death is the one universal of life.   Jesus, in His death and resurrection, made sure that we understood that death was not permanent.   He foretold to his disciples that He would die but that He would come back to life.  He said to them, “I go and prepare a place for you.”  So our death is provided for and we need not be afraid.

 

I think back about the farm.  When I was a junior in high school my grandmother died.  My friend Joey died in Vietnam my senior year.  His father died six weeks later, my grandfather died just after that.   I don’t know what happened to the hands.  I know now that they are all dead, Florine and Royce, and probably most of the tenants who were there in my day.  The way it all ended it was just suddenly over.   The truth is that time of my life was busy and I was sad about their deaths.   I also was busy graduating from high school and going to college and establishing my own life.   So, after a fashion, their deaths faded away from my present.  

 

Obviously, from the many devotionals I have written about that period, and the paintings that I have painted in remembrance of those times, their memory has become cherished in this stage of my life.   All these years of walking with Christ have taught me that though they are over in my life, the time will come when we will be all together again.   And maybe, there will be harp music!

 

Prayer:

Dear God, thank you for your preparation for all of our deaths.   Amen.