Living on a prayer

Last Tuesday, I was in Austin and found this sign on the side of the road. Which certainly looked like the handy work of a homeless person. "Living on a prayer. Please Help" I was taken back by the sign enough that I took it home. I read the sign and I thought, "Now isn't that true of all of us." Take these events from the last week.  A couple that I know well continue to struggle with a painful illness that is said to have no cure, a friend just found out he has some form of lymphatic cancer, my daughter was sick with a 105 fever today and was taken to the emergency room, the finances are tighter than "under armour", the car is acting funny, and I have a friend who is working through suicidal thoughts. We are all living on a prayer and we need help in every aspect of our lives. To my unknown sign making friend, Thank- you for reminding me that my life is lived on a prayer.

Trading up

Today was a early morning. I have a friend that I meet, so that we can talk and pray. So I got up and took a shower and after the shower I find that my youngest daughter has left the coziness of her bed traded it for the comfort of sleeping with mom. My children tend to do this often. Therefore, the sight of my daughter in our bed was not a surprise but this morning I noticed something different. (Probably, because I was a bit more coherent than usual at that time of morning.) What I noticed was that she is making a trade. My youngest likes her bed just fine. It is just her size, it is the top bunk, it has all of her favorite stuffed animals and even her name is one the wall in her room. You would think that would be more than enough to cause her to hunker down and only come out for food, but there there is just something about resting with mom and dad. Eventhough, with mom and dad, there is no top bunk, no stuffed animals, no name on the wall and there is no room, I believe my daughters see this as trading up. As if there is no comfort like the comfort of resting with mom and dad. Here is a realization. I don't trade up enough. Sometimes, I am so comfortable with 'my bed' (literally and figuratively) that I don't trade up to be with my father. My daughters especially the youngest seem to rest the most soundly when they sleep with us. Maybe I will rest better as well when I go to my Father. "Come to me all who are tired and I will give you rest." - Jesus

“Wake up, I will show you how to die better”

“Wake-up, I will show you how to die better” – Cady Moore

 

I am driving and I hear my two girls playing in the back seat. Cady, my oldest child, is always the architect of the games that she and her sister, Cianna, play together. So hearing Cady tell Cianna how she should play a game is very common. But this time the  phrase above rang out in my mind for days. “Wake up, I will show you how to die better.” Out of her young mouth came this phrase so deep rich meaning and meaning on multiple levels depending on your perspective.

 

What stood out to me was that Cady knew that Cianna had to wake up (out of her pretend death) to learn Cady’s better way to die. When someone dies there life is what is looked at to determine if they died well. Surely, you have those who in a moment give themselves in a heroic/sacrificial death at times but I would suggest that even in those cases it was living in a life that was awake with purpose, meaning, and value that would was the seed that flowered into their heroic/sacrificial death. A good death is determined by the life that preceded it. When we are sleeping through life that is a death in itself. So friends, if you find me sleeping life away, please wake me up so that I can die better.