My
sweet Ant Ellie died in her sleep a week ago. She hadn't been sick a
day in her life, had just moved from Florida to the one place on this
earth she loved and always longed to return to; the piney woods and
red-clay of Alabama. She loved this place with every inch of her robust
body.
And this was the place she wanted to die....someday......but not last Friday.
"The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life.
God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!" *
Ellie never had children of her own, so she borrowed her brothers'
kids. She was the kind of aunt every niece dreams of...the fun
aunt....the one that will
squeeze-her-3x-sized-rear-into-the-roller-coaster-seat-next-to-you kind
of aunt. Who at 79 was about to purchase her first 4-wheeler to cruise
around her 60 acres of land she lived on...alone.
"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.
It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” *
And she and God met up in these Alabama woods. As she sat drinking
coffee on her front porch last year in this place she loved so, God sat
with her. Quietly and expectantly.....He waited. He would soon be
calling her Home, but she didn't know that.
"God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.
We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children."*
And then she
heard Him. Like a wind whispering to her, she heard His Spirit speaking
to her heart. And she picked up that old dusty Bible sitting in her
bookshelf and opened it for the first time in years. His love leaped
off the pages and straight into her heart. And she made the decision to
be baptized last year at the age of 78.
"And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance!
We go through exactly what Christ goes through.
If we go through the hard times with Him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with Him!"*
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