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"Sunrise" Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash |
A few weeks ago, I had one of the challenging weeks where you don't quite understand everything that happened while having peace in your heart about it. Yeah, a bit confusing in some ways. I'll explain.
On Monday, during the day I had gone outside to gather my water jugs, fill them, place them in the utility cart, water my newly planted trees and finish up some of the landscaping projects that were started on Friday and Saturday. As I was filling the jugs, taking them to the cart, I was thinking about how to move some of the garden art and rocks to areas of the garden making it more pleasing to look at. I would set a jug in the cart, look at the garden, grab a few rocks or garden art and move them to a new spot. Gradually, it seemed to be coming together nicely. However, when I went to the other end of the garden project, I got distracted by something. I began feeling a bit uneasy wondering if something was about to happen. The feeling grew stronger but I had no idea what it was. So I stopped and prayed. I knew God knew what this was all about. After praying for a few minutes, I went back to my yard work thinking about what just happened. And, yet, I didn't know what was happening.
Later in the day, I received a text from a friend about one of his friends who was facing some struggles. As he texted, I began to realize that might be what got my attention earlier in the day. The prayer for something going on but unknown.
As the days progressed of the week, I learned that my friend's friend had passed away. My friend had been going through several frustratingly challenging issues to help his friend but to no avail. However, there is a difference here than in many situations which could be deemed sad or depressing. My friend, though frustrated with it all, repeated to him repeatedly that "God is in control." Indeed He is. Knowing that, helped him through this problem.
The friend who passed away was a Christian. A very strong devout Christian who shared God's Love with everyone he met. He was instrumental in reaching many people, especially men, for Christ whose lives had been changed by knowing him. Though we would have liked the situation to be different, for our own selfish reasons, it is comforting to know he is in heaven pain-free and healed from the health challenges he faced every day. While we will miss him, it is comforting to know his influence on so many people, my friend has many great memories with him, and he is done running the race finally reaching the goal of heaven.
Another important point in this situation is that we all need to be ready to die and meet God or not. We don't receive any warnings when our time will be coming so we must always be ready at any moment. If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ and followed Him, you will go to heaven. If not, you will not. At this point in life, it will be too late to make any decisions or change your eternal destination.
This story is based on true events. However, no names are mentioned to protect privacy.
