I have discovered more I can do with Google Maps! So here's a little tour of places.
(Each link opens a map in a new window)
Pax was born here (approximately) --Karachi, Pakistan
Pax is laid to rest here --Bhopal, India
Catherine was born here (approximately) --Athens, Greece
Catherine was living here when she passed on --Dudley, England
Catherine is laid to rest here --Alton, England
But where are they now??
The Christian faith to which I cling...
(Cling is the right word--imagine someone thrown off a ship into a stormy, dark, freezing cold sea. This person is a poor swimmer at the best of times, and now in these dire straits, she is utterly desperate. A hand reaches down from the ship. She reaches up. Her hand meets his; she clings on desperately for dear life. Okay, you got the picture, I'm clinging. Clinging desperately.)
To continue: the Christian faith to which I cling tells me that my children are still alive in the sense of consciousness. The true being, the true self, lives on. Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus on the Mount. They weren't too dead to hold a conversation. Jesus taught that our God is the God of the living, not the dead. (Matthew 22 if you're interested)
"Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die," Jesus taught. Well, obviously in the past two thousand years, countless people who believed in him have died. Physically. My own children included. (Catherine was a believer when she was young, though more confused about it in adulthood. Still, she was taking the Lord's Supper at services in hospital during her last admission. I have a feeling that she too was clinging, but only she can tell us what she was really thinking...)
But back to the promise "shall never die." Physically, they have, they do, we will. But our inner self, the bit that goes into the light in the near death experiences, the bit you feel even when someone is absent, that bit won't. At least, that's the promise.
So where are my children now? The real true non-dying selves? As a Christian, I will say "with God." But it is by faith (here's the clinging again), because for Him, I have no Google Map link.
(Each link opens a map in a new window)
Pax was born here (approximately) --Karachi, Pakistan
Pax is laid to rest here --Bhopal, India
Catherine was born here (approximately) --Athens, Greece
Catherine was living here when she passed on --Dudley, England
Catherine is laid to rest here --Alton, England
But where are they now??
The Christian faith to which I cling...
(Cling is the right word--imagine someone thrown off a ship into a stormy, dark, freezing cold sea. This person is a poor swimmer at the best of times, and now in these dire straits, she is utterly desperate. A hand reaches down from the ship. She reaches up. Her hand meets his; she clings on desperately for dear life. Okay, you got the picture, I'm clinging. Clinging desperately.)
To continue: the Christian faith to which I cling tells me that my children are still alive in the sense of consciousness. The true being, the true self, lives on. Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus on the Mount. They weren't too dead to hold a conversation. Jesus taught that our God is the God of the living, not the dead. (Matthew 22 if you're interested)
"Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die," Jesus taught. Well, obviously in the past two thousand years, countless people who believed in him have died. Physically. My own children included. (Catherine was a believer when she was young, though more confused about it in adulthood. Still, she was taking the Lord's Supper at services in hospital during her last admission. I have a feeling that she too was clinging, but only she can tell us what she was really thinking...)
But back to the promise "shall never die." Physically, they have, they do, we will. But our inner self, the bit that goes into the light in the near death experiences, the bit you feel even when someone is absent, that bit won't. At least, that's the promise.
So where are my children now? The real true non-dying selves? As a Christian, I will say "with God." But it is by faith (here's the clinging again), because for Him, I have no Google Map link.
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