We're driving to church Sunday morning, and between chattering teeth because the heat hasn't started working yet, Isaac opens up a conversation, again, about Sarge.
"I really miss that dog, Mommy. He must have been very old if God wanted him back in Heaven."
"Well, he was old," I say, "But you don't always have to be old to go to Heaven. Often, God needs to take back young people, too."
"I'm so mad that I'll be seven, soon," he says."This means, I'll be seven and my brother will only turn 4, and I'll always be older than him. Which means, I'll have to go to Heaven first."
I reassured him that age is not the only reason people die and go to Heaven. Although, I told him I hoped it would be the reason that all of us go...that we'd live a full life, grow very old, and then one day, God would come for us.
He sat quietly for a while, his six-year-old hands stuffed into his coat pockets, shoving his feet against the blower of the now-warm heater. Then he pipes up:
"Sarge probably has to protect people, even in Heaven. I think that's his new job. Like maybe he protects God, or the angels or something. Or maybe he is an angel and he protects me."
"Maybe. What made you think that?"
"Easy, Mom. He was a lifeguard."
And that, he was. And this conversation did to me what many conversations do to me. It provoked so many thoughts. Thoughts about the mind of a child, and how vast the world must seem to them. Thoughts of how fleeting it all really is.
We went to my late-grandparents' house later in the day, and I took a few pieces of Grandma's old costume jewelry, and a sugar bowl that sat on the table every day I ate there. They didn't have lavish things in life. Nothing of great value, material-wise. They were just great people. I didn't want anything of great value, anyway. I got that while they were alive, just soaking in their presence. I wanted a few things that I knew they used often...a bowl that held the sugar that Grandpa spooned into his daily coffee, and a couple pairs of earrings that not only do I remember Grandma buying (from the Avon lady, at that), but wearing. I wanted things that they touched. So fleetingly.
My Grandma used to talk about the end of the world. She read the National Enquirer and half-believed all the outrageous stories about a "half-child, half-monkey" or an "alien invasion impregnating rural farm community women." But she really believed everything about the end of the world. About the apocalypse, and Jesus' second coming. She thought it might even happen during her lifetime. Turns out it didn't, but I am not sure she was far off.
My mother noted, today, that the devastation at the World Trade Center was on 9/11/01, and the earthquake in Japan was on 3/11/11. Then I saw on a website that someone took the time to add those numbers together, reaching the conclusion of "12-21-12," the date Nostradamus predicted the world would end. Hmm...but then I did some further browsing, and noticed that the Madrid bombings happened on 3/11/04. Coincidental, maybe. I don't like being too superstitious.
However, the other day, at church? I opened our Daily Devotional. The 40 day one we are supposed to use during Lent. It has little blurbs, each day, about things we can ponder during this time of reflection. I read March 9 (Ash Wednesday) and then the 10th. It was when I flipped to Friday, March 11, that I got goosebumps. The topic for that day was "Seismic Shocks." It was all about great earthquakes, and David. The prayer? "Lord, use seismic shocks to wake us up to your Message, and use us to spread your word so that others may learn that they must turn to you for their rescue."
That, my friends, is no coincidence.
How can I tie this all together? What's the point? The point is: life is fleeting. If you've ever lost something you love, you're aware of this, all too painfully. There's nothing we can do about it, except to live well and live right while we live here. There's no telling when the world will end. There are plenty of hints in the Bible, things to look for. Either way, we have to agree, he's given us ample time to prepare...so that's all we can do. It's never to late to repent all the bad stuff and start over. If we know anything from Lent, it's that the ultimate sacrifice was made over 2000 years ago, and it didn't have an expiration date. Trusting in that, I think, is the simplest way to get to Heaven.
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