I Was Feeling Well Until . . .

I opened my email yesterday and received this from my good friend Tom Davis, Academic Dean of Word of Life Bible Institute.

He titled his email “Thinking of you!” which made me smile. Always glad when my friends see my name on a tombstone and think of me. Then there was that part about “Hope all is well!” Ah yes, all is well in my corner of the world. Lately it seems that we’ve been hit with people–many of them good friends–going through times of pain, loss and sorrow. I use the phrase “hit with” advisedly because that’s what it has felt like, like getting hit with bad news over and over again.

That’s life. This is not a tame world. But it’s the only world we’re given. And this world is not yet the “new earth” that we will one day inhabit. When that glad day comes and you want to find me, don’t go to the cemetery and look for a tombstone with my name on it because I won’t be there.

That’s a happy thought late on a Friday afternoon. And to my good friend Tom, thanks for asking. I’m doing well, we’re doing well, and enjoying each day as a gift from God. I am reminded of what Shirley Banta, my first church secretary in Oak Park, used to say to me: 

“Pastor Ray, have a blast while you last.”

On that note, I wish all of you a very good weekend.