Blue. Red. Corinth. Teeney. Big Jim. I’ve been thinking about them lately.
All of them are Homeboys of mine who attended Central State University during the years I did. Seems like the older I get, the more reminiscing I’m starting to do. I think it’s because too many of the people I grew up around are leaving planet earth.
It recently dawned on me that all five of my CSU Homeboys have died. Yes, I said died. I know the politically correct terminology these days is “transitioned”, or “passed away” but the fact is they died.
Throughout the 40 plus years I’ve lived as a Christian, I still wrestle with death, just like many other people. That’s why so many use the euphemisms “transitioned” or “passed away”. They’re words that people use to soften the reality of the loss.
But those euphemisms aren’t used in the Bible. The Word of God is explicit. It talks about being born and about dying. We can still blame the dying part on Adam and Eve for disobeying God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil while in the Garden of Eden.
But let me get back to my college Homeboys. I wrote about Blue and Red – two guys I grew up playing little league baseball with – dying earlier this year. But it only recently hit me that Corinth, who also was in my high school graduating class, Teeney and Big Jim (their nicknames) who were a couple classes behind mine, had also died.
It just doesn’t feel right that my five college Homeboys are no longer with us.
If that’s not enough, I lost my first sibling last December- the first and oldest out of nine. I’m still trying to reconcile that in my head.
As I ruminate about my Homeboys and oldest sibling, it makes me even more grateful to and reverent of God. I’m still here, in pretty good health and about to celebrate the birth of Christ in a couple of days.
And I want to encourage everyone to celebrate not only the gift of life those of us living continue to have, but also the greatest gift mankind has ever been given – and that is the gift of Christ.
Christ was born into the world so that we could have an opportunity to live forever by making the decision to believe in Him and then to live for Him. But the greatest gift about Christ being born is that He also died. He physically died, which was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. He died so that we might be able to live an abundant life on earth in our physical bodies, but more importantly live eternally in Heaven in our spiritual, celestial bodies.
I often think about why some people’s lives are shorter than others. I know a lot of things factor into that. The bottom line is, though, that God is the one who has the final say on it. As Deuteronomy 32:39 states “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”
Simply put, the time we have on earth is in His hands. The important thing is to thank Him for every day He gives us, and most importantly to thank Him for the gift He gave us in Jesus Christ.
Blessed Holidays everyone.
My End-Time Musings 