Yesterday I found out that one of my old friends from Riverland Community College died. I don't know many details, but I guess she went into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on Wednesday complaining of a severe migraine and vision problems. They discovered that she had an inoperable brain tumor. To the best of my knowledge, she was put on life support sometime Thursday night and taken off on Friday morning after her family and close friends were able to say their goodbyes.
This took me by surprise to say the least; it all happened so fast. As far as I know, she had no idea about any of this last week, and now her life has ended. What a reminder to me of the brevity of life and the importance of living each day in the light of eternity.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. ~ James 4:13~17
Yesterday and today, the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism has come to my mind several times and provided me comfort.
Q: What is thy only comfort in life and death?
A: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
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