I wrote my mom this note a few years ago. It’s appropriate to share it with you for Mother’s Day….

Hey Mom,
I’m getting ready to throw a sweatshirt away, and I’m writing because I think you bought it for me many, many moons ago. It’s my old gray insulated hooded sweatshirt that’s been with me everywhere; from 14,000+ feet in Colorado to sea-level at Assateague; numerous wilderness weeks, campouts all over the Midwest, and campfires too numerous to count.

It’s going to that great closet in the sky, where I’m sure that God will sew up the tattered sleeves and other rips in the fabric, he’ll fix the busted zipper, replace the string in the hood, and then he will thicken the spots grown thin at the wrists over the years, and he’ll bleach out the red and yellow and blue paint from the RLCA playground equipment workday, and then he will put it on his “hooded sweatshirt stretcher” that fixes up sweatshirts that their owners have shrunk in the dryer and eventually I will be wearing it again at that great campfire in the sky when we’ll sing “happy birthday” to everyone in 50 different ways and play the rhythm game and tool around on our guitars singing great hymns of the faith and “Afghan” on a cool autumn night with stars wheeling overhead and a full moon coming up late in the night and no one will be too tired to stay up to see it rise at 1:00 in the morning and it will be glorious beyond all compare.

I just wanted to say thanks. I’ve always thought that you were the best gift-giver that I’ve ever known, because your gifts always seem long-lasting, well-suited to the receiver, and “just what I needed.”

So, “Thanks.”

Much love,
Nate

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Horace, a Roman poet who lived around the time of Jesus, wrote these famous words: “Seize the day! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.”

The first line of his quote, (Latin “carpe diem”] has been immortalized in American culture through films such as Dead Poets’ Society and The Lion King. But it is the last line that stirs me. “It is later than you think.”

Our church family has experienced sudden loss twice in the past 27 months – one of them a young man just 18 years of age, the other a father of two teenage students. In both cases, it was later than we thought.

“It is later than you think.” This truth echoes down through the halls of history. It trails behind us as we walk, hiding in the shadows, out of sight and yet not entirely out of mind. We hear its footsteps even as we seek to turn up the volume of our lives so as to drown out the pitter-patter of its relentless tread.

Jesus was familiar with this truth, that “it is later than you think.” Jesus heard the footsteps, and He embraced the footsteps. Jesus was not afraid of death, because Jesus knew that there was a deeper truth. He spoke this deeper truth to Martha after her brother Lazarus had died. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’” (John 11)

Death is an enemy, but the Life of Jesus has engulfed and surpassed and defeated it! The Life of Jesus penetrates into the fabric of our being and we have the privilege of participating in that glorious Life. In the valley of the shadow of death we have found Life. What a mighty privilege it is to share the Life of Jesus Christ with each other and with our friends and neighbors!

Met a guy at a local homeless shelter today – his name is Tim.

Tim spent years working as a sous-chef in northern Michigan. He put in lots of hours working to improve himself as a chef; to get better at his job; to raise his income; to get to a better life for himself; to get to the next level.

Tim had his life planned out, and it included a log cabin in the woods (which, remarkably, was provided free of charge by his church up north). It included a beautiful wife. It included awesome kids.

Everything about his plan was going swell. The land was cleared and the log cabin was built. But six days before his wedding, the engagement to his fiancee ended in an unsavory manner. And that’s putting it mildly. I’m not gonna give you the details, but trust me – it wasn’t pretty. Bottom line – no beautiful wife. No awesome kids.

Tim went from top of the world to the bottom of the dung heap in a heartbeat. He ended up a few months later in the Grand Rapids area, and eventually made his way to our homeless shelter as a client.

He was working in the kitchen tonight, cooking hot dogs, chili, and fries for about 50 homeless guys. He told me his story in between dropping baskets of fries into the Fry-o-Lator. (Yep, that’s really what it was called.) He said, “I was living for myself all those years, and I’m just now starting to realize that I had stuff in the wrong order. Now I’m trying to do my best to make God the center of my life and let all the other stuff take care of itself.”

I hope I see Tim again. He’s planning to be at the shelter for quite a while, working his way through their life-skills programs. He inspires and energizes me to be a better follower of Jesus Christ. I went tonight to serve food and minister to homeless guys, and instead found myself encouraged by a homeless guy. Go figure.

I have a feeling that someday Tim is going to be an awesome husband and a fantastic father.