New Beginnings on Earth and In Heaven!!!

     Has it happened in your life that when someone is born, then someone dies, or visa versa? Have you noticed that before? I'm not sure what it means, except that perhaps for everyone who leaves there is another to take their place on this earth. Maybe it helps those of us who are grieving to have a new little one to help cushion the blow?
     Last Monday a very close young man in our lives had a new baby son, and then just yesterday we lost someone who also was very close to our hearts. In the unseen ecclesia of God, my husband called him "his elder." He was a quiet, mild-mannered man, who demonstrated by those manners how to be Christ-like.
     When my husband first came to Christ, he was someone who took him under his wing and unknowingly modeled the Christian life. Tom felt safe with Peter, as he didn't judge him or try and force any doctrine down his throat, but just became a friend, and if needed, could have been a confidante. The trust and the love was there.
     Tom admired Peter, in his involvement in civic and national affairs. He was one of the last diplomats, as I see it. He was not a politician. Although he held certain offices nationally, he never seemed to be proud , but took seriously the business at hand, by trying to change law and policy which were not in line with righteous standards. Most of all, though, he affected things that couldn't be documented, like being a role-model for the younger men. His wife, Mary, told me they had called him "the Sage," as they too looked up to him for the wisdom he had and expressed, and for the integrity that he possessed.
     Peter was a servant. I remember him waiting on us whenever we would come up there to visit as we ate breakfast. I know he waited on his wife, because sometimes whenever Mary and I would be talking on the phone, she'd tell me that she had to go because Peter had made supper for them. I have a husband like that too, and with fondness, we'd say that we both were spoiled.
     So, there is a time to live and a time to die. That time came for one who I know I will come to love, and for one that I did know and love. One took his first breath; one his last. And God was there in both of these sacred events.
     Our physical bodies are mysterious, aren't they? As I was talking to Mary this morning, she told me that when Peter died, the kids had said that his body was just a shell, probably alluding to the fact that Peter was so much more than his body. It's the shell we remember as the physical self, but the soul of a person is the real them.
     God tells us that we are to receive glorified bodies one day. I have thought that this meant that we will have the same look about us, but everything will be perfected.  But who really knows? What we can know, is that they we will be glorious!!!! Incorruption will overide corruption-the body of flesh. The real and the eternal will last forever with God. That reality is glorious in itself!!!
     So Peter got to go! Aaron (the newborn baby boy) had to come, so to speak. Not to diminish the earth walk, because God has purposes for little Aaron to fulfill, but in all reality going is truly the crowning glory of our lives, when we know God through Jesus Christ. And Peter did, and he is with Him.
      I love the truth that God expresses when He tells us that when we are absent from our body, we are present with the Lord. So, we are never without Him. What we call death, is not death at all, but it's a continuation of Life Eternal, but in a much more rich way, because we then get to see Him face to face. Peter is gazing into the face of Jesus; the one who died for Him. His faith all these years, has become sight. All the material blessings he may have received on earth pale in comparison to the eternal blessings he is and will continue to experience.
     Recently, my sister and I toured a very old cemetery and read the tombstones. I liked some of the things they used to write on them. One that they wrote, I will dedicate to Peter and is true of his state of being now, and is so "visually" sweet: SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS.

 

P.S.-I have to mention that Peter called me "Peppermint", short for Peppermint Patti from the Snoopy cartoon. I liked that, Peter.  Thanks for that term of endearment. It's something personal you left me with, to remember you by.