Good morning…
On different devices, our immediate family Zoomed with my mom and dad in Ohio as part of our Easter celebration. We had a real scare with my 83-year-old mother’s health this past month – a broken femur following a fall, a small stroke, a life-threatening infection, organs shutting down, on a ventilator in the ICU. Yet through massive amounts of prayer and the healing power of God rising up from within, miraculously my mom returned to us. Gradually traveling from the ICU to a hospital room then to skilled nursing at their senior living community, she happily returned home with her wheelchair to join my father in their independent living villa on Good Friday. With a backdrop of our entire extended family at a wedding a few summers back, my parents shared on the screen the gift of her continued progress.
After our interactive Zoom call, some of us played games outside while the others cooked. Together we enjoyed a leisurely late lunch on our back porch. While the non-cookers cleaned up, I checked my phone. That’s when I read her sobering text.
“Happy Easter,” a friend wrote, a friend with whom I have shared mutual support as we have walked and talked through our parents’ recent health challenges. “So sorry we haven’t gone walking but my father-in-law has been rather sick and he actually passed away yesterday morning. I would love to share a walk this week to catch up and to hear how your sweet mom is doing.”
“Wow,” I replied. “I am so sorry. I can so relate to your vulnerable feelings, as we have been on the brink with my mom this month. I am so sorry for you, for your husband, for his mother. What an abrupt goodbye. I would love to walk this week. What days and times are good for you?”
I am struck again by the fragility of life. Our family’s story could have turned out so differently. Like my friend, we could have been planning a funeral rather than an Easter Zoom call on different devices.
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:13-15, NIV). I don’t know why the Lord’s will allowed my mother to pull through her near death experience and why the Lord’s will invited my friend’s father-in-law to heaven yesterday, but I do know that none of us know what will happen tomorrow.
While our lungs are filled with breath might our hearts overflow with gratitude?
What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole (1 Peter 1:3-5, MSG).
Life healed and whole is the essence of Easter. Whether on earth or in heaven, our fertile future starts right now.
…Sue…
