More thoughts on Life and the Afterlife

#1 Macy made a comment the other night and she prefaced it by saying, "I'm going to say something not nice." (Obviously I'm paraphrasing my daughter. By now the wording is long gone from my brain.) She said, "I don't want to go to Heaven. I don't want to die now." She knows that dieing is what happens, but she does not understand that she won't die for many years. Maybe she has something that I need. She wants to live. She knows that Heaven is great cause you get to be with God, but she wants to be with her family. The last few weeks have been all about being together with her family (the three, soon to be four of us). She gets it though. Sure I don't want to die, especially now that I have a daughter and one on the way, but I know that Heaven is gonna be awesome. I need to have the same vigor for life as my 4 year old. She wants to live. When I just typed the word "live" I thought of birds singing, sun shining, running though a field of tall grass sort of living.

#2 As I sat in the funeral service for my grandfather this thought came to mind. Christ is the center. I don't really care (God might) what denomination you attend as long as you strive to put Christ at the center of all things. My parents did not "grow up" in the churches of Christ but started attending while my dad was in Cinncinati for graduate school. The church we had the funeral at (which is where my grandparents and father were members at) does not do things the way I would do them, but they love Christ and want to please the Father. Jesus. Salvation. Hope. Heaven. Sacrifice. Faithfulness. Cross. Creator. God. Eternal Father. That's what we need to cling to, not bickering about our differences.

#3 I heard about my heritage of faith. My grandfather grew up in a good Christian home where they read the Scripture every morning and sang Psalms together (as a family). What a great testament to my family. We are at least 5 generations into our faith. My daughter is learning about Jesus every Sunday morning in her Bible class in part because her great-great-grandfather took the time to share his faith with his children. May the Lord be praised.