too many for one week

I find my way to this blog sometimes when all of life is hard to walk. I have seen and been a part of 5 deaths close to me this week. None are related by blood-at least by natural birth. All are from the community of faith. The hardest one has been the very tragic death of a 7 year old, Elisha, who died of a very rare case of strep going into the blood stream. He leaves a mother and father-2 younger brothers and a younger sister. His parents have been through so much this week. Our church was a wonderful example of the family of Christ. I was amazed at the outpouring of love and support. Our pastor talked about grief coming over us like waves--and how if we try to stop the wave of it--it will push us over and take us down, but to let the wave come over us--not to fight it. I left the service at 1 p.m. where we had our normal weekly service, but also tried to work through the loss--my daughter and son in law worked with the kids in their classes to do some art work for the family. My family and I then went to another funeral home to see the wife and family of a dear man who also died this week---too young. Again I was amazed at the love and care of the community of believers. As I rode home from this to try to rest before going back into the work world--I called a dear friend to see if we could reschedule our dinner for Monday evening, only to have her tell me another dear friend and pastor lost his brave fight with cancer and had died yesterday. I just broke...under the sorrow of loss.
Life is sometimes just too hard---and it is just too sad. I know the hope I have for each of these brothers and sisters who has walked through the final door--I know I will see them again--and that I too will walk through that door someday and others will grieve for me. Just today, it is just plain hard. Even with the hope of the resurrection--there is a mystery to this whole thing we call life. So often we just go about it in a mode of "living like it will never change" and then the unexpected happens...and wham!! All normalcy stops, all the boring details we just go through everyday are hard to do because we are trying to just breathe one breath at a time---over and over till even that becomes normal again. Don't get me wrong---I am doing pretty good-for sure I am sad today, but I do have the greatest hope that Jesus is for real and that there is something so much bigger and better than anything that goes on here.

So, just needed to touch this place that seems to be more about death--this blog. I keep thinking I will write about other stuff here, but it seems holy in a way to me. If you are reading this and don't have a hope in life eternal....read the whole book of John and ask God to show you himself in a real way--and find a vineyard church nearby and ask someone how to know Jesus in a personal way. It is a good day to get this settled for yourself. I love Jesus--and am surely looking forward to seeing the ones who have gone before me. Well, enough for today. Thanks be to God! Bless all you guys who just have left for your new home. I will surely miss you---each of you touched my life in a real way. All different ages and backgrounds....now you know for sure---what you hoped in.