Life

So yesterday was a great reminder to me about how fragile & wonderful, temporary & amazing, taken for granted and cherished. In a few hours last night I went from feeling my baby kick in the womb for the 1st time (21 weeks) to counseling a widow and her daughter an hour after their husband/father passed away in the night. I went from feeling the beginning of life's stages and observing a baby just beginning to move to observing a man who's life had just ended an hour before. There are no words to describe either situation, the joy and elation of feeling your 1st baby move or the sadness of comforting someone who lost their husband/father of 33 years. My mind brought me continually back to the passage in Eccl. where it says "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die..." (Eccl. 3:1-2). We do not know when those times to die will come, but we should be prepared to face the Creator of Life and we need to be doing everything we can to help our friends, neighbors and even strangers be prepared as well to face the Creator of Life. If we are born of God then our lives truly only begin when we die to ourselves and begin to live for Him...how much more so when we die physically in order to experience joy everlasting with our Heavenly Father who has given us NEW life through His Son!

Bible Reading

I started a Bible Reading plan over a month ago and have been talking about it with some friends and students at Majestic but wanted to share it with a "bigger" audience. One of my professors in college (who also happened to teach Sunday morning Bible Study I went to as well) recently posted on Facebook (here and PDF format here)the plan he has been using for over 20 years for his personal Bible Reading. He knew God's word better than just about everyone I knew and I figured it was just because he smarter and older than I was...he points to this plan and God's grace as the reason he knows his Bible so well. I encourage you to at least look at it and be challenged as I was to know God better through His word. This is a GREAT use of 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!! JKE PS. There were less than 300 people in the group when I joined...there are now over 2500 people! :)