The other night I was in a store buying ice cream, and came across..."BIG GAY ICE CREAM" (photo above.) And I'm old enough to remember when Homosexuals were "in the closet" instead of on the top shelf of my local store where I couldn't help being reminded of their sin as I looked for "Chunky Monkey" and "Oreo" ice cream.
How did this happen?? How did the entire world, it seems, get turned upside down??
The answer is simple....CHRISTIANS have gone "in the closet," cowering in fear and shame like the gays once did. And the GAYS are now bold, and outspoken, like "we" used to be.
Now, if we are "in the closet" like JESUS said, to PRAY (Matthew 6:5-6) well that's a GOOD thing. But most of the time, "we" are not in THAT (prayer) closet...we are in the closet that the GAYS used to be in when THEY were ashamed. Perhaps when we get alone with God we should pray and ask Him to search our hearts and show us which closet we're really in, our prayer closet or our fear closet, and if we SHOULD be in the one we're in.
And we should not hide our LIGHT "in the closet," either.
Beauty TO Ashes. On 9-19-'19, it will be 25 years since my grandfather died. He was the first one I knew who was cremated, and it hit me really hard when I got that box of his ashes back from the funeral home. I've grown kind of USED to the Ashes thing, however because yesterday at the Memorial Service for my adopted mom, Bea (see photo above), the urn with her ashes was right there in plain view and it didn't faze me in the least.
It was an interesting memorial. It was led by a WOMAN pastor, and, after the eulogy by Bea's nephew, I read my POEM to Bea (see January 11th blog) from the same pulpit. In my head, I was remembering how beautiful Bea was (she was in her 80s when this photo was taken) and how I used to tell her "You can't spell BEAUTIFUL without B-E-A" to cheer her up when she was down.
And now, all of that outward beauty was GONE (until the resurrection, at least) and reduced to ashes in that tiny URN a few feet from where I spoke..
The Bible talks about God giving us "beauty from ashes" but the fact is, our bodily beauty will go TO ashes one day, whether by the cremation process OR natural, gradual disintegration (if the Lord tarries that long.) We should therefore not be proud of whatever outward attractiveness God may have blessed us with NOW, for it is truly a case of "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust."
My Letter Printed.... Finally, my letter about Mariano Rivera (see yesterday's blog) was printed today in ONE of the New York papers!! And just like my STAN LEE letter (Nov. 15th), I'm in the top spot again, for which I'm grateful.
It's unlikely now that the OTHER big NY paper will print it, but who knows. In any event, I'm glad they left my reference to Mo's FAITH in there!!
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