Walking through a nursing home for the first time can be quite disconcerting .
People sitting in wheel chairs in the hallways with weird frozen expressions on their faces, lost in time.
Voices saying "Hello" from darkened rooms ... people sitting looking at doors that security has been applied to keep them safe
but also locking them in.
Refugees from a familiar world that has become an unfamiliar enemy that is ever trying to harm them or just leave them forgotten and left behind.
More troubling and stressful might be that ...you find that you are one of the members of this increasingly saddened sunset community.
Don't leave me just yet this is not just a rambling diatribe to convince you to have pity on my elderly Mom or other Mom's and Dad's just like her, who find themselves in their last days in a nursing home ..(though not to minimalize your responsibility to love, pray, visit, and care)... But it is a wake up call to ALERT you to a more insidious plot being carried out by the enemy of creation...Satan.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE!! read this: 1 Peter 5:8 - Be sober , be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about , seeking whom he may devour :
I have yet to find people physically mauled and ripped in pieces ..between 2 peices of bread and sliding into the jaws of a fiery red snarling monster ...drooling with the blood of former victims.
BUT I CONTINUALLY MEET PEOPLE WHOSE SOULS HAVE ALL BUT BEEN DEVOURED, RAVAGED, AND EMPTIED.
Their breath of life has to be facilitated by shallow temporary stimulants. Their personal happiness is heavily dependent on temporal pleasures and depreciating possessions. Their hope of a better life is built on nothing less than impossible odds and marketing ploys. When all is said and done ...life gets darker and sadder with no desire to AWAKE ... PLEASE WAKE ME...
When life narrows down because of age or illness ...it is amazing that the question of "What is next?" Can be simplified and/or clarified by asking ourselves
WHAT HAVE WE DONE WITH JESUS?
He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life (not now not ever) ...but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36
For those who Believe ...Hang on for the next one ...this is it.
Psalm 17:15 - As for me,
I will behold Thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied ,
when I awake , with Thy likeness.
The Hebrew word for awake is pronounced "koots - and means: to awake, wake up, to awaken, arouse, show signs of waking, "awake" (like wide-awake) - its primitive root is identical, "koots" but means --- "spend the summer" ... with the thought of waking up and finding it summer. WEIRD? ...not really. Get some potato chips and munch on them for a moment and think about the following final thought: Summer Vacation with Jesus forever!!! My summer home forever ......home forever .....forever home with Him ....forever Summer.
HLFA,
Jeff