A week ago Saturday friends and family joined with the Prettyman and Norris families to honor the life God gave to Coeeta Prettyman and to grieve together in her passing to be with her Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Many of you know that one of Kitty’s passions was children. Maybe that passion grew from hearing about the time when the people brought children to Jesus, hoping he would bless them, but the disciples tried to push them away. Whatever the origin of her love for children, Kitty rightly understood the last part of Jesus’ call, “let the little children come unto me.” It is by faith, as a trusting, dependent child that we come to Jesus to receive His blessing of salvation as our Savior and Redeemer. Coeeta knew that personally. She came to Jesus with child-like faith for the forgiveness of sin and promise of eternal life with Jesus Christ. There is no other One to whom we can go, except Jesus. There is no other way, we must “come unto [Him].” Funerals and memorial services for believers truly are a “sad form of celebration.”
Last Friday afternoon and evening about thirty people ventured to the beach for a little refreshment. Getting there this year has been more challenging than any of the past years. I don’t have the convenience of picking up scrap wood from the bin at Ralph’s Lumber anymore. There has been plenty of wood but most of it required cutting or demolition first. In addition to cooking hamburgers or hot dogs on an open pit fire, there is nothing better than chili that has been heated on that same fire in a coffee can! Cleanup was always easy, too. For about twenty years Wanda Peek kept us supplied in large coffee cans. I used her last can on our first trip of the summer in July. A week ago Sunday we inherited six cans from the office where Sarah Cho (from the Korean congregation) works! As the word was put out for our “need,” we also asked God to supply. Don’t you find it amazing that we think something so trivial would be important to God? Maybe it is even more incredible that we rarely think or ask God for His greatest riches, like salvation for the unsaved or holiness to be evident in our life.
Five weeks ago we began looking at John 1. Sunday we made it through verse 13. I guess you could say we are moving at a snail’s pace. But the study has been profitable in learning about the incarnation of God from what John must have seen as “God’s perspective on becoming human.” If the Lord allows, next Sunday, we’ll examine the climax of John’s declaration, “the Word became flesh….”
Last week I was looking for guitar chords to a few hymns. Do you remember George Beverly Shea’s “The Wonder of it All”? Thankfully someone posted on the internet easy to play guitar chords for this song. Near the bottom of the page was a third stanza. Two stanzas I knew but I didn’t know there was a third. I did some research but could not verify who actually composed it nor why it would not be included in the printed works. Whether these lines are originally Mr. Shea’s work or not, this third stanza is actually the best.
There’s the wonder of God’s revelation,
The Word who dwelt among men,
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul
Is that Jesus is coming again!
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