Thoughts from a sleepless night...

​Normally I would be sleeping by now, but my mind is whirling a mile a minute. I knew sleep would evade me unless I sat down and wrote and just let it out. I could blame it on the steroid I am taking to help get over the nasty cold I have, but I know it is more than that. It is more like seeing all the faces of the ones that I loved drift across my mind, picturing them kneeling before our Savior.

Ten years ago, I wrote a song after my dear daddy passed and the chorus went like this:
“He set his eyes on the prize, when he gave the Lord his life, now he stands before the One Who set him free. It is well with his soul, his body’s been made whole, all because of the choice he made so long ago…he set his eyes on the prize.”

This year has been tough. It seems like one after the other people are leaving this earth to be with Jesus. And as much as I rejoice in the fact that I know I will see them again, I don’t like it.

I remember back when I was about 8 years old, I experienced my first loss of life in the family…my great grandmother Mima (Jane – who my middle name was named after). She passed away and I remember being confused as to what that meant. It was a big deal because my dad and older brother got to leave to go to Massachusetts for a little trip, but I stayed home with my mom and younger brother. I didn’t remember too much about Mima, but it was enough to understand that I would never see her again on this earth.

It wasn’t until I was about 17 years old that I experienced another close friend’s passing. It was Donna, a woman I had befriended in my teen years, who was a quadriplegic. I would often go on the weekends and visit her, and we would talk about who I might marry and what plans God had for my future. We would talk about my dreams about writing. I was living all that she wished she could have lived.

Then one day she got pneumonia. She was tired of fighting life that way, always depending on others for her life sustenance. She was secure in her salvation and knew where she was going to go when she breathed her last breath on this earth. So, she stopped fighting as the pneumonia took over her already strained lungs and let go…into the arms of Jesus.

I took it hard. It was not easy to learn that Donna had passed away, and I no longer could go visit her or be encouraged by her. It was one of the first times I realized how the sting of death affected me directly.
Having lived 50 years on this earth now, I have seen my share of death. And I still don’t like it. I don’t like the void it leaves in my heart. I don’t like the idea that someone in my close-knit family could be next, and I am not ready for that. I am not ready to get yet either. There is still so much to see and do.

But life is so fragile. Though I knew it before, I have experienced this truth repeatedly in the last few months of this year:

An uncurable sickness can change everything.
A fall down the stairs can change everything.
A person driving down the wrong side of the road can change everything.
It did for these people.

Bill Edwards.
Violet Agro.
George Stewart.
Lauren Morrill.

But one thing I know about all these people is that they had set their eyes on the prize long before the day came when it was their time. The end time that God set on their life clock and said, “This is the appointed day you will close your eyes on this earth and come to live with me in paradise. Your time on earth will end, but your life in heaven is just beginning.”

Just like my dad did, they all knew where they would be going when they opened their eyes after death. And I know I will be seeing them again in heaven because I too, set my eyes on the prize long ago. I pray I have lots more years on this earth with my family, but my reservation is set and one day I will see them all again. And my mind can rest at ease now, because God is still in control. He’s got this.
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2 Cor. 5:1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”