Abiding

If we are loving, following, serving, resting, trusting, believing Christ; and if we have left this world behind, with everything it offers us to lure our hearts from our Savior, and if we are clinging to Christ alone, abiding in Him, then we will not be "running to Him for protection" - we will already be there, protected and anchored before the storms come.

Treading on Beauty

I had considered the Cross of Christ many times before, looking upon the Savior hanging there, dying there, bleeding there, for me. I had considered the wrath of God the Father that Jesus endured in my place. I had wept there, with Mary and John, at the foot of the Cross many times before. I had rejoiced there, knowing that because of that death, His death, the death of the Creator of the world, I had been forgiven, changed, transformed, brought to life. What I had never considered is that the blood that cleanses, that washes hearts whiter than snow, fell to the ground there beneath the Cross. Oh, that I might linger there beneath the Cross, on that precious blood. Oh, that I would tread on such beauty. Let me linger there, near the Cross, treading on the beauty spilled there, kneeling on the beauty that was shed for me.

In an instant

It is amazing to realize what can change in an instant. In a moment, a wife, mother, grandmother, friend, neighbor can endure a stroke, an aneurysm and be on the cusp of meeting Jesus. My heart hurts for the husband, the children, the grandchildren, the friends of such a woman; I am praying for years to be added to her life like they were added to King Hezekiah's.

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

Thomas Paine