Tag: death

The bonds of love

hands

In 1842 a 22-year-old Catholic woman of nobility married a colonel in the Dutch Cavalry.

Despite the bride’s nobility, the groom was not of nobility and was a Protestant as well.

Catholic nobility, marrying “peasant” Protestant – what a scandal it must have been.

Yet despite their differences, the two were married for nearly 40 years before the groom died.

Eight years later the bride followed him in death.

Rather than being buried in her families large tomb, she insisted that she be buried in the common cemetery.

However, the cemetery had strict guidelines on where bodies could be buried. Catholics were buried in the larger area of the cemetery and protestants and Jews were buried in smaller areas, essentially quarantined by a wall, separating them from the other areas.

Before her death, the bride ordered that her bodied should be laid to rest by her Protestant husband, with a monument signifying their eternal connection.

She lies on one side of the wall, he on the other, still holding hands.

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HT: David Bruce and Neatorama

A day of mixed emotions

Amy E. Blundell (Dec. 2004)

Some days you wake up not knowing how you should feel.

Today is one of those days.

Six years ago today, around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I received a phone call that changed my life forever.

My sister Amy had passed away.

As C.S. Lewis said about the death of a close loved one – it’s like an amputation. You never get over it. You don’t out grow it. You don’t get used to it. You just learn to live without it.
Continue reading A day of mixed emotions

Trusting the messenger

02.23.DontBombAfghan.WDC.08oct01

I find it interesting, that when you talk to people about news and where they get their news from, most people remain fairly loyal to their brand of choice.

Some will swear by a local news stations — especially their investigative reports.

Some will swear by CNN or MSNBC.

Others will swear about CNN and MSNBC and swear by FOX News.

Some will rave about their local daily paper, while others will curse their local daily paper.

Either way, we’ve found a source we can trust and only rarely look elsewhere.
Continue reading Trusting the messenger

Death

Bengt Ekerot as Death, from the film Det Sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (1957). From Wikipedia
Bengt Ekerot as Death, from the film Det Sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (1957). From Wikipedia

As Brother Dan mentioned very eloquently yesterday…

“Sometimes death comes as the enemy, a thief in the night” — bringing hurt, pain and suffering.

“But sometimes death comes as a friend” — bringing mercy, relief and an end to suffering.

Yet whenever and however death comes, it leaves behind a gaping hole in those left behind.

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes. God’s name be ever blessed.” – Job 1:21

Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter killed

My heart goes out to the Chapman family today. It was announced at their church service last night that their youngest daughter, Maria (adopted from China), was killed yesterday afternoon after she was struck by a vehicle driven by her older brother.

I can’t imagine the pain, the hurt and probably guilt the family is feeling right now.

Lots of questions from folks I’m sure but I know this – God wasn’t surprised by this. Just like he wasn’t surprised by my sister’s death, he wasn’t surprised by Pearl Harbor, he wasn’t surprised by 9-11.
He didn’t turn around in Heaven yesterday and say, “well why is Maria here? I wasn’t expecting her for another 70 years.” He knew and saw this long before any of us came into existence.

Psalm 139

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

HT – Kevin Hendricks