MEMORY with cake
This past weekend was the 3rd year after my wife, Carol, passed into the church triumphant. I don’t like to say it is the anniversary, like it is something to be celebrated each year, but it still is a significant date in my life that reminds me a little bit about my own mortality and what it means to be alive. Life still needs to be lived.
To help me deal with the loss and memory of this moment, I took my day off to go to Catalina State Park in my RV and spent the day reading on a picnic table with my dog at my side. The weather was absolutely beautiful! The nights were so quiet and cool!
On Sunday, I was reminded of how we go on in life doing the little things that help us through moments that are so powerful. It happened as I bit into the wonderfully tasting cake that the Karrer’s supplied for the congregation in memorial for their son who passed a few years ago this past week as well. That cake had many memories and thoughts of life and I remember thinking at that single moment, “I am a child of God. There is a place for me in this world.”
Then, as I was licking the frosting off my plate, that wonderful butter cream frosting, I broke out in song in my head. “I’m a child of God… Yes, I am…. I am chosen, Not forsaken, I am who you say I am. You are for me. Not against me.” These are lyrics to a wonderful contemporary Christian worship song called, “Who You Say I Am”, written by Ben Feilding and Rueben Morgan usually sang by Hillsong. It was through these words and song and a smile that I realized that yes… I am o.k. and that as a child of God I am given a plan in this world. That felt very reassuring at that moment.
It is in our baptismal rites that we are first given that title… or name… as a child of God. It was said, “YOU belong to Christ in whom you have been baptized. ALLELUIA ! Child of God, YOU have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the sign of Christ forever.” It was then, in that little ceremony, we were given that invisible tattoo on our foreheads that never goes away… That little sign of the cross. A sign of life.
I don’t know about you, but when I do remind myself of who I am as a child of God, and re-trace that little cross on my forehead, I am given a spiritual sign that God is with me and that everything is going to be o.k. I have a place in this world and God will lead me. “I am who you say I am, Who the Son sets free, Oh, is free indeed. I am a child of God, Yes I am!” That is a great song…. I invite you to look it up and listen to God’s words. You are a child of God and whatever you have been going through or are going through… God will never leave you or forsake you.
Cake is also a great way to confront our issues! Thank you, Randy and Rhonda, for lighting up my day with a sweet memory of lives past and of life still being lived. AMEN