One Moment in Time

credit for image: http://www.slideshare.net/bright9977/one-moment-in-time-15223228

I hope your summertime has been especially blessed! Mine has been busy and blessed. A few days with my grandson and his parents were heavenly! Kathryn and I had a relaxing vacation before she started law school at USF. So we feel blessed.

         Sadly, I must report that our church has experienced the loss of several precious church members this summer and many memorial services were held, or will be held: Sally Henderson, George Menchen, Sara Alden (to be held August 22^nd). As I write this article our beloved Joyce Beckner is in hospice care. All of these long time members will leave a legacy as good and faithful servants to our church.

         Yet, when we look beyond the sorrow we find there are often joys mixed in. In the planning of the services I have been blessed by getting to know their families and appreciated the grace that comes with ministering to them in their time of mourning. 

         In developing memorial services I am personally reminded how  precious is the gift of life. With some memorial services I even sense a deeper comfort with the hereafter. I am reminded of the importance of giving of ourselves for others and keeping healthy relationships with family and friends.

         We are experiencing eternal life now. Knowing that we are on a continuum of life that stretches into infinity is hard to grasp on a daily basis. But Einstein proved time is relative. And our days on earth are just a brief moment in time compared to the thousands of years in eternity, according to the Bible. Psalm 90:4 states: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”

The late Whitney Houston sang a song that became a big hit titled,

“One Moment in Time.”

I want one moment in time
When I'm more than I thought I could be
When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away
And the answers are all up to me
Give me one moment in time
When I'm racing with destiny
Then in that one moment of time
I will feel, I will feel….eternity

         Even though this is a beautiful song as Christians we don’t agree with the lyrics because we know that the answers are NOT all up to us, but up to God. When we release our lives to God we go with the flow of the Holy Spirit and we can be peaceful knowing God is guiding our “race with destiny.”

         My hope and prayer for you all is to remember and show with your lives this blessing in Ephesus recorded in Ephesians 3: 16-19

       “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”