August closes with a spectrum of sun faded pastels seen in my flower garden, recording the passing of another summer.  Brisk mornings remind us that winter will soon follow with an interval of autumn to ponder and find time for special thanksgiving, days rich with blessing and meaning.  Mammoth sunflower blossoms from my garden decorate a small table at my front door, inviting birds (and squirrels) to come and dine.  A renewed awareness of my limited understanding of the wider universe emerged recently with NASA’S new close-up photos of Pluto and her five moons, the most distant former planet now known to circulate in its orbit around the sun only once every 248 earth years.  All this reminds me that in a future time, we shall have all of eternity to discover distant galaxies ad infinitum. “Anybody here want to live forever, say I do.”

Through most of August I found myself in Sentara’s Cancer Center reception area awaiting Oncology (radiation) therapy, insurance to thwart the recurrence of carcinomas on my scalp.  Those undergoing chemotherapy use the same reception area.  I reasoned that many of the patients coming and going were possibly “terminal”, a term I had at first accepted for myself too, given the reality that all of us are terminal, some whose departure for other worlds may occur sooner than others.  Recovering my senses, I reminded myself that my Christian faith omits the word “terminal” when my textbook for living informs me that the soulful part of me will live on forever.  None other than Jesus Himself told me so: “I go to prepare a place for you.”  What a sobering and powerful reminder for anyone visiting or working in a hospital!   

“And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1 John 5:11)  In our text, we see that this work of bestowing eternal life is God’s work, …our present possession, for He has given it to us….We are alive in Him, having been born (again) into His family.  This is a permanent situation.  The tense shifts to the present in the last phrase of the text…Our life finds its vitality in living union with the Son.  His death and resurrection made life possible, and now His present life is ours.  His Spirit, resident within us, provides this vitality, and since the Spirit of God is eternal, our life is eternal.”   John D. Morris, Institute for Creation Research, August 2015.

“With power politics bedeviling the world, and international gangsterdom rife, with a fierce, unpredictable storm of cynicism and hatred battering the frail ship of our hopes and dreams and mocking our visions of the Kingdom of God – have we come to that?  To see that Christ is indeed our only hope?  That the one chance any of us has to get through this frighteningly complicated life is to bring Him into action at our side?  Then act on it, call on Him now.  Wake Christ!  You will discover He has been awake and watchful all the time.”  James S. Stewart, Coping With Life’s Storms  (Circa 1950)