Side note: I am getting more writing assignments than I thought possible. I am backlogged at least a week on immediate assignments, not to mention the two biographies I am working on (interviews, phone calls, etc) It was necessary for me to "fire" one of the companies for which I work. As I was assembling the content and sending in the features over the weekend, the company supervisor (my sole contact) slowly started requiring web-building requirements to my assignments. As I was discussing this issue, he became rude and disrespectful...and that was it for me.
You see, about four months ago, I made it a policy that in any business that I would do, if anyone would show disrespect to me or any of my teammates in the network, I would cease the business relationship. I might be the last businessman in the world that holds a strong policy on manners, but there must be civility in all aspects of the working world, I believe. Christian or non-Christian - no matter.
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Now, back to the story:
I was the most anxious kid in the country the week before Christmas. Nothing else seemed to matter but that Jerry Mahoney ventroloquist puppet. I dreamed about using it and speaking without moving my lips. I studied the "Throw Your Voice" sections of party games books in the Hershey Library. I talked about how I would entertain church groups and school meetings alike. I was obsessed with Christmas morning.
The day came.
I bolted downstairs - along with the rest of my brother sand sisters - to the front room of our country house on Airport Road. Mom had us sit down (Dad wasn't around - I think the divorce was final) in front of the tall Christmas tree decked with plastic icicles and spray snow (which I still think is awesome stuff). We went through the smaller gifts that we exchanged among siblings (car-shaped soap, box of nonpareil candy) and laughed a lot. It was great.
Then there was one more present for each child.
The Big Gift.
One by one we worked our way around the room. I'm telling you, I was in a sweat, (and I believe I was too young to even have sweat yet) but I can tell you the honest truth, I was shaking whenever I grabbed that wrapping paper. It seems the right size, but you never know...
I held the rectangular parcel vertically and I ripped it open halfway up.
Jerry Mahoney peeked through the whole inteh wrapping paper.
I shouted, screamed and laughed. I kissed my mom and shouted some more. Christmas Day was Perfect.
I waited and waited and waited for something so long that I ached - and it came to pass.
And I look at the life we have right now, and as much as I know things are fun and enjoyable, there are also hurts and griefs that we all face. I know there is a better life that God has for us. He's not a monster to make us suffer and then extinguish from existence. There is a Heaven and I wait anxiously for that day whenever I can see it all come true.
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down-when we die and leave these bodies-we will have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies.
Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life.
God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
That is why we live by believing and not by seeing.
For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies.
Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life.
God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
That is why we live by believing and not by seeing.
2 Cor. 5>2
