Is He Still Chasing You?

In my email this morning was a link to Amber Haines' most recent post. At the end of it is a video of her oldest son getting baptized. I'll admit to getting a little teary-eyed when I watched it. The angels rejoiced and I cried. 

I get that way at baptisms sometimes - either teary or just all tingly. It is harder when attending mass baptisms because everything is going so fast - people in the water then out of the water. Next! But I know that they are having their own teary/tingly experiences and it is good. 

While watching that video this morning, I remembered the photo I carry in one of my Bibles. It sits on the page that has Acts 2:38 on it.

Then Peter said unto them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (KJV)

We didn't have camcorders in every hand back in 1979, so you will have to be satisfied with a photo of my big event. It happened in the Medina River while I was at church camp that summer. David Cudd dunked me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and my life changed forever.

To post or not to post...

The past 24 hours has been hard. So do I post or just wait until I'm feeling "peppier"?  I'm trying out this blog thing, so I guess post it is.

Last night our Son and Grandson were in a car wreck. A car that was full of teenagers ran a red light and Son t-boned them. One of the teens was hurt badly and we don't even know if she made it through the night. Son is afraid to find out because he thinks that if she died, he'll never be able to live with himself. All of the many witnesses who stayed to help said that it was not Son's fault, but try to convince him of that... Grandson is very shaken up. He just cried and cried and kept saying, "I don't want those people to be hurt". If you feel like praying a little bit more today, please remember all those involved in the wreck. I have a feeling that there will be many long-range implications for all of them.

More expected but not much easier for me to deal with is that Daddy is leaving tomorrow.  He will be working in Yellowstone National Park for the summer and won't be home until late October. It hasn't been quite three months since Mom passed away and now he is leaving too. The man is 80 years old and had a small stroke in March. I cannot help but fear that we won't see him again. I know that is borrowing tomorrow's troubles. Jesus cautioned us against that, didn't he?

I guess I am still just raw from losing Mom. I don't want to in any way diminish the grief of my Siblings, but I envy them. I envy that they get to go back to their daily lives that didn't have Mom all over every detail and they get a few minutes of break from the hurt. Mom lived with me. Every square inch of my house is just covered in Mom. We bought this house with her comfort foremost in our minds. I don't regret a moment of it. I just want a little relief from feeling like I am on the side of a cliff with my grief waiting to push me over the edge. Even though I am functioning most days, that is how I feel. And because of that, I want my Daddy to stay right here and keep me from feeling abandoned. Self-centered but honest. Actually, I'll get up early in the morning and give him a kiss goodbye. But I hate to see him go.

I'm also carrying some other hurts with me right now. God is teaching me how to carry the load with His help. Its a little funny how He is using some totally unrelated (or they seemed so) events that have happened over the course of three years to mold me and make me. So often I feel like I have no idea what His plan is for me. So I get a kick out of seeing it all come together. I've learned through hard experience that I don't want to try life without Him (gets messy), so I have to trust that He has my best interests in mind. It sure is nice, though, to actually see that it was all in aid of burning the chaff away and getting to the good stuff.

So that is my un-peppy post for the night. There will be more good stuff to come for us. I know it. I'm glad we are all linked together. I'll be praying for you.