Are You Ready?

The Labor Day weekend has come and gone. I’m sure there were many of you that went away for the long weekend or had a backyard barbecue. Labor Day typically signifies the final days of summer where we all want to get in one last hurrah before getting on with fall and winter. But for Rick and me, the Labor Day weekend brought sadness as we learned of two friends who had passed away.

Doug was one of the guys who went to welding school with Rick. He kept in touch with Rick almost every day.  Jenna was a lady from our church family in Illinois and since moving away I only interacted with her through Facebook.

Both were too young to die. Doug was 34; Jenna was 52.

Both deaths were unexpected and shocking. Doug died in a jail in Oklahoma after being arrested for public intoxication; Jenna died alone peacefully while sitting in a chair in her home in Illinois.

When situations like this happen, the first question you want to ask is why? But that is a question only God can answer. So instead, I decided to look at these two deaths to see if I can use what happened to help answer another question, “Are you ready?”

Doug was a good guy who didn’t always make the right choices. His happiness seemed to be a result of what was happening in his life.  He tried to improve his life by going to welding school and learning a trade, but in the end he wound up losing his wife and daughter in divorce, losing his job, taking up with a woman too soon after his divorce who wasn’t good for him, ignoring help and advice from his friends and using alcohol to temporarily bury his troubles.

Jenna was a sweet lady who loved her family and friends and was loved in return. She loved the Lord and her church family and had a heart to serve God. When she was diagnosed with colon cancer, she trusted Jesus to heal her. She always had a smile on her face and was a positive and optimistic person.

Here you have two very different people that had one thing in common on the day of their death…they didn’t know it was their last day to live. They didn’t know they had no more time left. They didn’t know they were leaving their friends and family behind. They didn't know they had no more chances to say "I love you."  They didn’t know and neither will you when your time comes.  

A few weeks ago my pastor asked this question during his sermon, “What would you do if you knew Jesus was coming again tomorrow?” This question screamed at me as a born again believer. The Bible says that as a disciple of Christ, I must go and tell others that Jesus can forgive them of their sin and save them from eternal damnation in hell, and that by accepting God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ they can have eternal life in heaven. Once Jesus comes again, it will be too late. Well, I can tell you that I did not take the pastor’s question to heart until now. For Doug and Jenna life is over. It's too late for me to ask them "Are you ready?"

In a telephone call, Doug’s dad told Rick that Doug had a peaceful look on his face and he was sure he was headed in the right direction. And if you knew Jenna, you would believe that today she is in the arms of Jesus in Heaven. But it is not for me to say who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. Only God knows what was in the hearts of these two friends.

So today I ask you “Are you ready?”  


Blessings and hugs,

~ P

If you would like information that will show you how you can become a child of God, please click here:  Four Spiritual Laws.

"Super" Walmart

Some days I never leave the RV. There’s no place to go. Why spend the gas just riding around in the car. So I stay home, read, watch TV, get on the computer and do a little housework. It fills my day.

But there is one day in the week that regularly gets me out of the house, and that’s the day I go grocery shopping. I go to a Walmart Supercenter for my one stop weekly shopping. I just don’t agree that it’s “super.” That word seems to be overused these days. Oh, I get it that they are combining a grocery store with a department store of sorts. But does that really warrant having SUPER in the title? They could just as easily call them Walmart Plus stores. We all would have understood that.

So here I am thinking about what’s so “super” about Walmart Supercenters and I came up with this…it’s the people who go there to shop. Each and every person is unique in his own right. No two of us are alike…we are all one of a kind. Now that’s super!

Take today for instance.

I was lucky enough to get a parking spot fairly close to the front of the store. When I got out of my car, I saw a lady hobbling around the car next to mine holding on as she walked towards a empty cart left next to her car. You could tell she was in pain by the way she was walking…kind of like she was walking on hot coals only very slowly.

“Do you need any help,” I asked her.

“No, not really,” she said. “It’s just when I sit too long I get stiff and it takes me a while to get moving. I need to get this cart to hold on to while I walk.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about. I get the same way sometimes. I walked beside her as we made our way in to Walmart talking about our aching knees and how the heat doesn’t much help. I was going to suggest a motorized cart for her but when we got to the lobby, her elderly mother, whom she had apparently dropped off before parking, was waiting for her in a motorized cart and she had her foot in a cast. What a pair they made. We parted ways at that point. I felt a small part of me had bonded with her during our short 2 minute walk. We shared something…even if it was only the same aches and pains.

The rest of my shopping trip was pretty much a one man show…I was in my own little world looking for this and that, marking them off my list as I went. Finally, I was done. Check out is always a nightmare, trying to find the shortest line, hoping the clerk is fast and knows what she’s doing. I picked aisle 12. There were only two people in line. The first person in line was almost finished and the guy behind her was just buying some beer and a few other things. Not too bad.

As I stood there waiting, a young man in his late 20’s early 30’s came up behind me. I turned and saw he had only two items. I told him to go ahead of me. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, go ahead,” I said. “I have way more items than you.” As it turned out I had $132 worth of items in my cart. That’s the problem with going to a Super Walmart…but I’ll leave that for another day. I like to let people with only a few items go ahead of me so that maybe one day when I only have a few items, someone will let me go ahead. You know, the biblical “do unto others” thing.

Anyway, as I continued to wait for my turn to check out, this guy comes up behind me. He’s a short, thin, 40-something year old biker guy dressed full out in leather pants and jacket with chains all over the jacket and piercings all over his face (nose, lips, eyebrows, ears). He smiles at me with a one tooth missing smile and asks, “Can I look at those Pez dispensers down there?”

“Sure,” I said as I moved over so he could look.

“Do you collect them?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said shyly almost as if he was embarrassed about it. Not finding what he wanted he moved on to the next check out aisle. Too funny. I would never have pegged him as a collector of Pez dispensers. Looks sure can be deceiving.

The two-item guy and beer guy in front of me were staring at biker guy as he went from aisle to aisle and they were quietly laughing. Yes he was different and looked strange in his leather outfit and piercings, but how bad can a guy be who collects Pez dispensers?

Sometimes you just have to look at people and see them the way God sees them. The Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made and we are made in God’s image. It also says that man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So who am I to judge…who are we to judge?

Home I went with all my groceries. Another week done. I feel good about today. God showed me that I need to offer help to those in need, to be kind to one another, and not to be judgmental; all good lessons.

I wonder who I’ll meet in Super Walmart next week and what God will show me.

~ P