Precious in the sight of the Lord

Now I saw in my dream, that these two men went in at the gate; and lo, as they entered, they were transfigured; and they had raiment put on that shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them; the harps to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honor. 

Then I heard in my dream, that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them,

“enter ye into the joy of your lord.”

I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying,

“blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the lamb, for ever and ever.”

Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold the city shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold; and in them walked many men, with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps, to sing praises withal.

There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. And after that they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.

The passage above is how John Bunyan describes the entrance of Christian and Hopeful into the Celestial City.  This morning my dad concluded the same journey that Christian and Hopeful made. 

In the end, as He was throughout Dad's life, God was gracious.  A few weeks ago when I saw him it was obvious that his pilgrimage on this earth was near the end.  For some, the end is swift and sudden and altogether unexpected.  For Dad, the end of the journey was protracted, but full of God's grace.  Even now, I think of the grace of God shown through the caretakers and hospice workers who did everything humanly possible to keep Dad comfortable in his last days.  Last week, God providentially allowed Lacey and me to come up and see Dad on a particularly good day.  We held his hand and he kissed Lacey's hand and we both got an "I love you" from him.  Given his condition the time that I had previously seen him, hat was more than I had even hoped for.

God's final act of grace for Dad on this earth was to call Dad to what Bunyan referred to as the Celestial City.  For those who loved him, it was merciful.  Even now, I'm reflecting on a sermon my pastor delivered just a week ago on how the death of His saints is precious in the sight of the Lord (Psalm 116:15).   

For the last several months we watched Dad proceed on a rapid decline in his mental faculties.  What had started as forgetfulness and momentary confusion had ultimately left him unable to put together any intelligible words.  The last few times I saw him he didn't even seem to know me.  Still, despite the loss of his cognitive abilities, I'm comforted in knowing that God was with him through the valley of the shadow of death.  My prayer is that even if Dad could no longer recognize me, or my brothers, or any of he people that so loved him and faithfully visited him, that God would have given him a strong sense of His presence as He took him through the end of his pilgrimage on this earth.

 

Everyone smiles at American Girl

Rhianna


Baylee


Reagan


OK, well almost everybody. I think I might have said something that I thought was funny here to Peyton

Play day in Chicago

Today was supposed to be a yard day. We had some weeds that needed pulling, our flower beds needed tending, and our lawn needed mowing. Ugh! The lawn. Thankfully Lacey usually mows it. It would be hard for me to find the daylight time necessary to mow the entire yard. My neighbors probably think I'm trying to choke my yard out with dandelions and clover. I finally decided to spring for a lawn service to take care of the weeds with six well timed and costly applications. I tried the past two years to do it on my own, but it never seemed to work, so now I'm choking down the bill rather than choking the grass. Technically, we have less than an acre, but because someone in our homeowner's association got the idea that we could save on annual dues by having the homeowners adjacent to common areas be responsible for the mowing of those areas, we are stuck mowing about thirty percent more area than we own.

Well, today was the day that TruGreen came to our house for the first application. Of course, after an application you aren't supposed to mow the grass. I provided the Eve interpretation of that command and decided that we should not mow, nor touch the grass, lest we die. Instead, we loaded up the Suburban and drove into Chicago.

Baylee and Rhianna have been in the United States for less than ninety days, but they already get excited about going into Chicago. Each of the girls picked out an American Girl doll to carry with them. It was about 58 degrees, which to me is almost perfect (could be a little warmer, but not too much...I like the sweatshirt weather).

After visiting American Girl we headed to Navy Pier. Baylee rode in a stroller, so it didn't bother her. Rhianna complained about her feet being tired. I asked her if she would walk into town when she was in Liberia and she said "Nooooo, we wou' ta' a ca'." I'm not sure how true that was. Reagan was asking if we could just get a cab, but Peyton knew that dad was too cheap to pay for a cab when the weather was perfectly fine and we all had healthy legs.

The whole family enjoys Navy Pier. There's a small area where they always have some sort of family oriented show. We watched a juggling unicycler and a magician this time. One thing Lacey and I noticed was how unruly the kids were (not ours...they can be unruly, but they like to fool the general public). I'm talking about kids climbing on the stage during the performance. Where were the parents? Do they think that's acceptable behavior? Oh, and then there was this lady who literally scooted my Reagan and Rhianna off of a bench. The juggling show had ended and I plopped Reagan and Rhianna on this bench that had just emptied so that we could get off of the floor. When I turned back around I saw that this woman had scooted down the bench, pushing my kids down to where they were sharing a single space. I was astonished at how rude she was, and she didn't even offer an apology. I commented rather loudly about how rude that was and marched over to the other side of the seating area so that I wouldn't be tempted to continue talking loudly about how rude she was. Instead I came home and blogged about it. And I've posted her picture here so that you can be aware of this woman who practiced manifest destiny with respect to the seating area on the bench. There, now I feel better.

After the shows we walked (more complaints) back to the car and headed home, but not before trying a new Thai restaurant. It wasn't the best Thai food I've ever had, but it was reasonably priced for downtown Chicago.

Two hours later, we were back home, the kids were in bed, and I'm dreading getting out in the yard this week to finish the work that I didn't even start today.