Doing The Rarest Thing In The World

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”― Oscar Wilde

It’s not every day you’ll find me quoting Oscar Wilde, but in this instance, his words make perfect sense.

I’ve blogged before about my approach to life and how growing up in a large family, where perhaps death and tragedy seem more common, has a lot to do with my sense of urgency toward life. I over commit, have trouble telling people no, and loathe wasting time. To merely exist is unacceptable. Is this necessarily a bad thing?

I have six siblings, so my parents’ home overflows when we’re all there at the same time with our children and grandchildren. My dad has fourteen siblings, so an extended Hodges family reunion has well over a hundred people, though empty spots exist from each generation. My aunts and uncles are well into their 70s and 80s (one just turned 90), yet many passed away young, and the trend has remained into my generation.

Cemetery on my return visit in 2011

My earliest childhood memory is trudging through a cemetery in the late 1960s, my little legs straining to keep up with the adults and older children, as infant twins were buried in tiny coffins. I hadn’t even started school, and the enormity and finality of death were thrust upon me. Life is so different now where parents go to extremes to shield their children from the natural process of dying. We’re doing our kids a disservice.

But I digress.

My point is that as I’ve watched the young and old alike pass from this world to the next, I’ve often heard the phrase “life is short.” And it is. Just in the past decade the number we’ve lost in my family is in the double digits, most relatively young, some my age or younger. We treasure our reunions and don’t take a single one for granted. We understand when we hug each other good-bye, it may be for the last time.

My dad and his siblings
(George in background)

My cousin George, a pillar of the Hodges family, and his wife Sabrina have hosted the reunion for years on their sprawling property graced by a beautiful wood home with a porch that wraps around the entire house. It’s a serene environment that bustles with activity for the day and then winds down to a quiet evening for the handful staying overnight. My husband, kids, and I have been in that handful relaxing on the porch, watching the sun set, and eating peanut butter pie. One year, we enjoyed a thunderstorm after sunset. We reveled in the thunderclaps and rain since we were in a severe drought back home in South Carolina.

George talking with Josh
(Sabrina in red shirt in background)

George once spent more than an hour at the end of this long day talking with my son Josh about being a police officer. A couple years later, Josh shared that he’d chosen to become a firefighter instead. George and Sabrina listened with rapt attention and asked questions about his training and future. I’ve encountered very few people who listen like that, especially to kids. They have a passion for kids, evidenced by the fact that George was a school resource officer for years until he retired last year, and Sabrina is a school principal.

Playing a water game in the hot
July weather in Florida

Hodges are headstrong and often set in our ways but passionate about our beliefs and how we treat others. As apparent is the urgency with which we live. So after New Year’s, the family starts anticipating the reunion on Fourth of July weekend in Hilliard, Florida. The family is so extensive and spread out around the country that this year we even have a FB page to make sure no one gets left out. 

The reunion was part of my exchange with George on my birthday almost two weeks ago on Facebook. 

A little more than twelve hours later, George began suffering strokes and was airlifted to a hospital in Jacksonville in critical condition. I was dumbfounded when I heard. This was unfathomable. I couldn’t believe it, yet at the same time, I could. Life is fragile. We fool ourselves on a daily basis by thinking otherwise.

Yet, we know who holds each day in His hand. Nothing dumbfounds God or catches Him by surprise. We simply have to make the most of each day in service to Him, and trust Him for the future.

No one holds the golden ticket to immortality on this earth. Our only hope for living forever into eternity is through the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Each week I ask if you have a prayer request you’d like to share. This week, I’d like you to pray for George and Sabrina, his elderly mother, siblings, and children. Pray specifically for George’s recovery and wisdom for his medical team as they make decisions for his future.

How may I pray for you? Please leave a comment or e-mail me confidential requests.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

God bless you all,

Laura ✞

©Laura Hodges Poole

When Life Vanishes

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

Life is short. That’s not an astounding revelation to anyone, but when events occur such as those at the Boston Marathon on Monday, life’s fragility is driven home. Eight-year-old Martin Richard died in the bombings, his mother is in the hospital with a head injury, and his sister lost her leg. For the father, his joy of cheering friends in the marathon quickly turned into his worst nightmare of death and destruction most of us will only ever witness on television. They were just part of the story of the 170+ people injured or killed.

My prayers have been going up for these folks, as I’m sure yours have, as well.

Author Rose Wilder Lane once remarked that even the longest lives are short. The eternal call will come for all of us one day, whether we’re ready for it or not. But there’s the rub. Why wouldn’t anybody be ready? Have you ever known anybody to live forever? Yet many people, especially Americans, live in denial about death.

How many times have you heard someone say they wouldn’t write a will or buy life insurance because it’s bad luck?

Or they’ll get around to dealing with the issue of the afterlife when they get older. Right now, they just wanna have fun.

I remember hearing Terri Irwin, widow of wildlife activist Steve Irwin, comment that she’d wake up sometimes in the middle of the night when he was alive and find him poring over paperwork and future plans because he believed he would die young. He lived with urgency. Ironically, he always imagined a car accident taking him out. That was his worst nightmare—not death by an animal, which seemed more likely to those who watched him on television. But my point is he planned for his family’s future, and hopefully for himself, in the event of his death.

Planning for your loved ones is important. Showing your love and never taking their existence for granted is equally important. Even Jesus made provision for his mother’s future. In John 19:27, Jesus spoke to his disciple John from the cross and said, “Here is your mother.” The Bible tells us John took her into his home from that moment on.

But there’s something even more important when considering your mortality. Eternity is the last thing you want to leave to chance.

My weekly blog posts are written with the belief and from the perspective that most of my readers, e-mail subscribers, and followers are Christians. I offer Biblical encouragement to help you through this earthly journey and the trials you encounter. However, this week, I’m going to take a few minutes to encourage those who haven’t embraced the notion of an afterlife—good or bad—heaven or hell.

The Bible through Jesus’ earthly ministry makes it clear he is the only way to God and heaven.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

God does not want anyone to perish. He provided a simple, though costly, way for us to come to Him without the penalty of sin because it has been paid through Jesus’ sacrifice.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17

Mankind has proven time and again through our fallen nature the only way we can come into God’s holy presence and be acceptable in His sight is through His grace. Grace born on the cross two thousand years ago.

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. Hebrews 9:24-28 

What a glorious expression of God’s love for us!

If you’ve not done so, will you spend a few moments today in prayer to seriously consider your eternal future?

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Romans 10:9-10

I’d love to hear from you if you make this decision. J

If you have a prayer request or praise report, please share in the comments below or e-mail me confidential requests. New requests for this week include:

            A classmate from high school, Bonnie, is battling breast cancer.

            My great-nephew, Jack, was recently diagnosed with Perthes disease.

Please pray for their comfort, healing, and strength, as well as for their families. Continue to lift up the Boston victims and their families as they struggle through the process of healing, rehab, and for some, grief. 

God bless,

Laura ✞

©Laura Hodges Poole

Facing Death

“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.” Richard Bach, author

We’re often confronted with the reality that life is short for some folks. God’s plans are not ordered by our human thoughts, and so, while early death is a reality, it remains a mystery to humans.

The Psalmist said, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Ps. 139:16. So whether or not you embrace Richard Bach’s philosophy, we have to trust God’s plan for our life. 

No one knows this better than my friend, guest blogger, and cancer survivor Venita McCart. Today, she shares the moment when she confronted the reality of death.

Thoughts We Remember To Forget

By Venita McCart

“He has set eternity in the hearts of men.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT

Here’s the thought: I want to live forever. Here’s the other thought: That’s not going to happen. Here’s the other-other thought…

I’m a writer; a thought-keeper. I journal, make lists, scribble on sticky notes, and paper scraps. I shall not forget anything profound. (Or more likely, slightly sensible.) I may need these thoughts for an article, devotion, or best seller. Okay, so I’m an optimist, too.

Do I want all my thoughts? No. When I changed doctors recently the little girl in scrubs said, “Be sure to list your medical history on these forms, especially details about your cancer.” I would rather just forget all the cancer stuff and I never really want to write it down. But I must.

I would rather forget other things too, like death. I once was an expert at forgetting it. Then the diagnosis came and death was in my face, but I ached so to live. My conflict within brought other thoughts I didn’t want: Aren’t you supposed to be a Christian? Shouldn’t you be okay with this? I am a Christian. But I had never been a dying Christian before. I was afraid. 

I called out to God, the best prayer ever: “Help me!”

Then I remembered Jesus spent much time and many tears in a garden praying, facing death he knew was coming. His soul was crushed with grief, like mine. He pleaded for life, like me. He anguished for release, like I did.

In prayer, with eternity in his heart, He found peace about dying…and the keys to peace for me. Jesus Christ went to the dreaded cross to give me the eternal life I crave.

Here’s the thought: I want to live forever. Here’s the other thought: That’s not going to happen. Here’s the other-other thought: Oh, yes it is!

Jesus knows your dilemma. If you are struggling with the fear of death because of cancer, remember the Creator and Saver of your eternity. Ask Him for His thoughts, for they are eternal, and they are for you. If you call, He will answer.

Venita McCart and the group she founded, Faith Force Cancer Support Ministries, has ministered to hundreds of patients since 2005 through group meetings, personal contacts, writing, and speaking. She is currently working on materials to comfort and encourage cancer patients, their loved ones, and to help others create support ministries. She and her husband live in central Illinois. Venita may be reached at venitamccart@yahoo.com.

If you have a prayer need, please share in the comments section or email me with confidential requests. Would you also take a moment to pray for other requests? 

Our prayer list for today includes several battling cancer. Please pray for comfort, healing, and strength. While you’re at it, pray for their families, as well.

·       Courtney, young mother with brain tumor

·       Emily, 12-year-old with bone cancer. Her body has responded well to the initial phase of treatment.  She still has a long road ahead.

·       Sally, who continues a 12-year battle against breast cancer

·       Lori, my cousin’s wife, with metastatic cancer

·       TC’s father-in-law, not doing well

Also:

Please lift up Karen Redding’s husband and children as they are grieving her death.

U.S. soldier Jesse McCart whose information is on a separate page above. Please visit that page for updates including contact info for him and other GIs recovering and rehabbing in the same military hospital in Texas. It would mean a great deal to these servicemen to receive encouragement. Pre-stamped postcards from the post office are a great method to do so on a regular basis.

Jesse McCart and men from his unit

I selected our worship song today as a tribute to our armed forces who have paid the ultimate sacrifice so we may enjoy the freedoms we have. "Finally Home," by MercyMe.

 

 God bless,
Laura

© Laura Hodges Poole