a great loss

Our ministry suffered a great loss this week, his name was Skip.

This man Skip, was not someone I was close to, but I always admired him from afar. Anyone who chooses the Hospital Visitation team to serve on is special. And he was.

At his funeral yesterday, one of the speakers talked about being with Skip a couple of days before he went to be with the Lord. He spoke about Skip's eyes lighting up with the anticipation of seeing Christ. He knew with certainty he was only a day or so away from meeting Him and it's all he could talk about. He longed to be with Him!

The thing that concerned him terribly were the people in his life that he knew still didn't know the Lord personally. He asked his wife to call each one of them so he could speak to them with great concern and urgency. And for those he couldn't speak to one last time, he prayed for in his hospital bed.

While Skip was hospitalized fighting great pain he shared his faith, he lead several people to the Lord right in the hospital room. Amazing!

This is something I cannot get off my mind, if I knew for sure that I only had a day or two to live, would I be overcome with the joy of passing to be present with the Lord? Would I?

I cannot say with certainty.

This makes me sad and has brought great conviction to my soul. I long to be Eternity focused instead of settling for this. In my final days I wonder if I would busy myself trying to make provisions for family, organize as much as I could and fuss about earthly details instead of resting against Christ counting the moments until I saw Him. Life is very, very, very short - eternity forever -

So even in his passing Skip challenges me with a life that always looked ahead and always lived to take many with him, and so he did...awesome!