Well Done!

Most of you know that my mother passed away on October 9th and that Janet and I made the trek to Oklahoma to conduct her funeral service on Sunday, October 11th. It was a great privilege for me as a pastor to preach both mother and daddy’s memorial services. As we (my brother, sister and I) cleaned out my mom’s room, I came across a picture of mother and daddy on their wedding day. They were so young and vibrant with their whole lives ahead of them. And now, their lives are over. Oh, how quickly the years fly by! It made me think of the saying, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” As I held their wedding picture (it’s in a beautiful frame), two thoughts dominated my thinking: 1) The years are flying by for me, even as they did for mother and daddy – Am I living my life in a way that will really count for all eternity? 2) As both mother and daddy are gone now, I’m so glad that they chose to invest so much of their lives in God’s great kingdom work. What comfort it brings me to know that they will hear, “Well done, Art and Gladys Lindell, good and faithful servants!”

Sweet and amazing!

It was a moving experience for me to watch Zachary put his own rose in the vase on Sunday. As many of you know, each time someone makes a profession of faith in Christ as Savior and Lord through the witness of one of our people, we put a rose in the vase behind the pulpit, celebrating that great event. Zachary made a profession of faith at Good News Club at Plain Elementary School the preceding Tuesday. Because Christ took his stand for Zachary at the cross, Zachary was willing to take his stand for Christ before the whole congregation. How sweet and amazing is God’s grace!

Thankful and grateful

I’m thankful for my wife, Janet, especially because in the past 12 years, she could have died twice – once from Crohn’s disease complications and once from having her lungs filled with blood clots due to a cancerous tumor on her vena cava above her liver. So, I am deeply grateful that God chose to leave her with me. With this in mind, I said to her the other day, “With every passing year in our marriage, I want to grow sweeter, more loving, more patient, and more servant-like.” That’s really the desire of my heart, but I know, all too well, that I can’t accomplish this by my own moral resolve. That’s why I am desperate for God’s grace and cry out for it every day.