The People We Meet Along the Way

I have been in a kind of a reflective mood this week. We just buried my father, Edward, on Saturday. He had lived a full life. He lived a good life. He was fortunate to live to 90 years of age, to have had the joy of a family and the true love of two women in his life. My mom, Lydia, died of cancer at 45. Dad had loved her dearly for more than 20+ years. Later in life he met Kay and had the joy of loving her for more than 20 years.

He was part of the "Great Generation", hard working men and women who defended this country through a World War and then built this country through hard work. He shared some sorrows. Lydia dying so young, the company for which he worked for decades, declaring bankruptcy, the resulting period unemployment, long term Parkinson's disease. But he lived a full and honest life and amazingly he did it without ever darkening the doors of a hospital until he was almost 90.

He died and left behind 1 child, 4 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. At this time the whole "kit & kabootal" and their spouses are living for the Lord, so his life will continue to have an impact on future generations.

A time like this does many things. For one it causes you to think of the other kind souls you have met along the way. We have a hobby that although it can be done alone, it is so much greater through the people you get to meet. One, that pops into my mind immediately was Barry Wingard. Although I never met him in person, I thoroughly enjoyed our email correspondence. Through the years I purchased many items from him ("TrucksNTrains") on eBay (4 early Atlas GP30s and a ton of Kadee freight cars (many still in shrink wrap). Barry documented the early years of N scale and was an expert in N scale collections. Health problems caused him to begin to sell off that collection which is how we met. He expanded my knowledge greatly (before Barry I never knew that the "Christy Bottling Plant" building in the middle photo of my last blog was a valued early Revell building). But he was just a kind, friendly, and very helpful soul that my life's journey was fortunate enough to cross. I think I still feel the shock of his loss to the hobby.

Besides getting to know people across the country I also got to correspond with a gentleman, Tatsuya Nishikawa, from Japan. We ended up exchanging pictures of our respective countries. So the hobby also took me overseas (for free)!

But death also jars us into remembering our own mortality and the fact they we too will soon go to meet our Maker. It is so sad that most folks today have no idea of what it takes to get through heaven's gates to enjoy an eternal life of joy with our Creator. Most folks foolishly believe that God judges on a curve, that if we do more good than bad, we can make it. They fail to read His instruction manual, the Bible. There we learn that He judges by His standard of total Holiness and because we have all sinned, we all fail the test. But God still loved us so much that he sent his own son, Jesus, to live a holy life and take our sins onto the cross to pay our penalty for sin. Through Him we are offered entry into all heaven's glory.

A free gift of eternal life! But like any gift, to be enjoyed it must be accepted. And acceptance does not mean a mere acquiesce of the facts. It means that you must follow Him. And how do we know who are His followers?

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Rom 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

1 John 2:4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

Those who keep His commandments! He desires fellowship with us! He wants us to talk with Him through prayer.

He wants to talk with us by reaching our spirits through His Word in the Bible.

To keep His commandments we need to know His Word and follow it.

This is what a death jolts us to see face to face!