Fourth of July Thoughts

If you've read my blog in the last couple of months, you know that my mom now lives with me. That is a new, but welcome, normal for us. On the 4th, my family typically heads up to the campus of Southwest Baptist University for the Rotary sponsored Celebration of Freedom. The community turns out, the food is good, and the firework extravaganza caps off a very fun evening. We are going this year, too. A dear lady can sit with mom. She assured us she had no plans for the evening.

Mom, to my knowledge, only went to one Celebration of Freedom, and that was on a visit she and my dad made to Bolivar  back in 1996. (They eventually moved here in 1998). But wouldn't you know it, that one attendance was forever marked by her picture in the Bolivar Herald Free Press. I hadn't seen the picture in years, but thought of it this year because, well, because, my mom lives with me now.

On July 4, 2012, she's on hospice. On July 4, 1996, she felt like sitting out in the heat and celebrating with the rest of us.

That's "Shelley" and "Munford"

Believe it or not, this difference isn't making me terribly sad today. Just a little pensive. Time is passing. We all are aging. It is the way it is. It can either bring us down, or drive us to seek the truth.

The truth that I always run to is found in 2 Corinthians 4:16-17. I've committed this to memory, and I encourage you to too. When you start noticing those inevitable aches and creaks (as I have), you can remind yourself of what's really real. Your creator put these words down in his book to give us hope.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Now, with all that said, tonight, I'll ooh and ahhh as some glorious fireworks explode in the night sky. That is good and right and fun!

And tonight, I also have the hope of eternal glory that far outweighs anything I've ever seen, heard, felt or experienced on this earth.

That is good and right and the biggest fun ever!