I heard of Aunt Flor’s passing yesterday morning, and then last night was the news of Pinky’s death.
We truly live in distressful times, so we need to manage “stress levels”. Two deaths in the family in a 24 hour period, all I could do was fall down on my knees, call another cousin, and pray to God together, even if it was an overseas call, the depth of grief that my big clan is going through right now, we can find strength and comfort, knowing that God is there with us. He knows how we feel. He knows the relationship we have had with our dearly departed ones.
Pictures. Pictures of happy times. And the dark road ahead as we deal with our personal grief. In my experience, the comfort that I get is from the Lord God, truly.
Absent in the body, present with the Lord.
On the other side of our last heartbeat is eternity.
All should be prepared to meet our Creator God.
As Christ Followers, all we can do is point people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
That’s all we can do.
Then we can PRAY that God makes those seeds grow in the hearts of those people that they TOO can and would decide to know more about this JESUS that can save us and be with us for the rest of our lives here on earth.
That despite tragedies, we know that we are not going through it alone.
God is there. He is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent.
God never changes, He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
God is our Rock and our Fortress. An ever present help, in times of need. In times of grief, and in times of sorrow, He is there ALL the time, with us, for those who know Christ, He gives us His gift of the Holy Spirit …
“16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”” – John 14:16-21 | Context: “Role of the Spirit” – (John 14:16-31) https://www.christianlifegroups.com/role-of-the-spirit-john-1416-31/
Life goes on, until it is our turn to graduate from this life. All the more do we also need to think of those people that we will leave behind. Dying these days is too expensive for the people who are left behind. I come from a big big family, so it’s fairly common to “pitch in”. But for my own immediate family, it’s just me and my son. So, how many people these days are coming from single parent households? Pinky was a single parent, so I am praying for her only child too, my nephew, who is only a couple of years older than my own son.
Prayers for people is the best thing we can do, if we cannot physically be there for them to help out. If it wasn’t for all these convid restrictions and lockdowns, it’s easy to just buy a ticket to fly out to them. But in other countries under strict lockdowns, when a relative dies, they go “no funeral, straight to cremation” route. It’s as if people are not even allowed to pay their last respects.
When my oldest brother died, him being a military doctor, none of us could fly into the province where he was found dead. NOT ONE from our big family, we tried calling “people in high places that we knew” …
… but at least we got a video, a videographer was hired, to stream my brother’s lonely casket, with fellow soldiers standing, and then a flag covering his casket, in the background, lots and lots of flowers, from his military friends, his affiliated hospitals, his “work family”, they took care of everything. And then we all awaited as to when the military plane could accommodate flying my brother’s remains to the military base, so his family can see his coffin before they cremated him.
Then my beloved “mother in law”, Mom Dolly, well, the paternal grandmother of my son, died less than two weeks later. I learned of it a couple of hours later, and so I was able to at least go “face time” with her only daughter as we both were just bawling and crying together. She was like a Mom to me, a Christian woman who saw me, for me. She treated and spoke to me as if I was truly her daughter too. Without fail ALWAYS greeting me Happy Mother’s day, always checking in and saying hi and telling me she is praying for me and my son. Sending me scriptures, praying together WITH me, on the phone. She would also text and ask about covid, what a wonderful woman and friend. Her death totally broke me down because she was also an ally, a very strong Christ Follower, a very strong prayer warrior.
There are other deaths that followed too.. relatives, loved ones and friends. Former classmates, colleagues. God knows all the timing.
It was in December when I started looking into it here in Texas, too. And I thought if I could help families with preparing for the financial burden of funeral expenses at the very least, then that could also be something I can share with people, as I see them during disasters (reactive), so that they can be proactive, because death is inevitable.
It’s not about selling something. It’s about helping families prepare for what will happen, eventually, to all of us. And we don’t know when that would be.
RIP, dear cousin Pinky. 🙁
I heard of Aunt Flor’s passing yesterday morning, and then last night was the news of Pinky’s death.
We truly live in distressful times, so we need to manage “stress levels”. Two deaths in the family in a 24 hour period, all I could do was fall down on my knees, call another cousin, and pray to God together, even if it was an overseas call, the depth of grief that my big clan is going through right now, we can find strength and comfort, knowing that God is there with us. He knows how we feel. He knows the relationship we have had with our dearly departed ones.
Pictures. Pictures of happy times. And the dark road ahead as we deal with our personal grief. In my experience, the comfort that I get is from the Lord God, truly.
Absent in the body, present with the Lord.
On the other side of our last heartbeat is eternity.
All should be prepared to meet our Creator God.
As Christ Followers, all we can do is point people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
That’s all we can do.
Then we can PRAY that God makes those seeds grow in the hearts of those people that they TOO can and would decide to know more about this JESUS that can save us and be with us for the rest of our lives here on earth.
That despite tragedies, we know that we are not going through it alone.
God is there. He is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent.
God never changes, He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
God is our Rock and our Fortress. An ever present help, in times of need. In times of grief, and in times of sorrow, He is there ALL the time, with us, for those who know Christ, He gives us His gift of the Holy Spirit …
“16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”” – John 14:16-21 | Context: “Role of the Spirit” – (John 14:16-31)
https://www.christianlifegroups.com/role-of-the-spirit-john-1416-31/
Life goes on, until it is our turn to graduate from this life. All the more do we also need to think of those people that we will leave behind. Dying these days is too expensive for the people who are left behind. I come from a big big family, so it’s fairly common to “pitch in”. But for my own immediate family, it’s just me and my son. So, how many people these days are coming from single parent households? Pinky was a single parent, so I am praying for her only child too, my nephew, who is only a couple of years older than my own son.
Prayers for people is the best thing we can do, if we cannot physically be there for them to help out. If it wasn’t for all these convid restrictions and lockdowns, it’s easy to just buy a ticket to fly out to them. But in other countries under strict lockdowns, when a relative dies, they go “no funeral, straight to cremation” route. It’s as if people are not even allowed to pay their last respects.
When my oldest brother died, him being a military doctor, none of us could fly into the province where he was found dead. NOT ONE from our big family, we tried calling “people in high places that we knew” …
… but at least we got a video, a videographer was hired, to stream my brother’s lonely casket, with fellow soldiers standing, and then a flag covering his casket, in the background, lots and lots of flowers, from his military friends, his affiliated hospitals, his “work family”, they took care of everything. And then we all awaited as to when the military plane could accommodate flying my brother’s remains to the military base, so his family can see his coffin before they cremated him.
Then my beloved “mother in law”, Mom Dolly, well, the paternal grandmother of my son, died less than two weeks later. I learned of it a couple of hours later, and so I was able to at least go “face time” with her only daughter as we both were just bawling and crying together. She was like a Mom to me, a Christian woman who saw me, for me. She treated and spoke to me as if I was truly her daughter too. Without fail ALWAYS greeting me Happy Mother’s day, always checking in and saying hi and telling me she is praying for me and my son. Sending me scriptures, praying together WITH me, on the phone. She would also text and ask about covid, what a wonderful woman and friend. Her death totally broke me down because she was also an ally, a very strong Christ Follower, a very strong prayer warrior.
There are other deaths that followed too.. relatives, loved ones and friends. Former classmates, colleagues. God knows all the timing.
It was in December when I started looking into it here in Texas, too. And I thought if I could help families with preparing for the financial burden of funeral expenses at the very least, then that could also be something I can share with people, as I see them during disasters (reactive), so that they can be proactive, because death is inevitable.
It’s not about selling something. It’s about helping families prepare for what will happen, eventually, to all of us. And we don’t know when that would be.
RIP Aunt Flor and dear cousin Pinky. 🙁