Saturday Song: Badfinger, "It's Over"

I'm certain that any child would say that summer holidays are the best. For two whole months, there's no getting up early and going to school. Families usually plan their vacations for July or August since their children are out of school. And judging from all of the folks I know, the summer is when great family memories are made.

The British band, Badfinger, recorded a song about returning home. It resonates with me since I was sent to a residential school for blind and deaf children for six lonely years. Leaving that sterile institution for the freedom of summer vacation each June meant so much to me.

Hear Badfinger's song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mezhl2erFbc

A day will come when our enforced stay on this planet will be over. For many of us, our exit will be through the door of death. And unlike the folks who aren't believers in Christ, we don't fear it. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21 (BBE) that, "For to me life is Christ and death is profit."

Neither was Peter afraid of death. He wrote in 2 Peter 1:14 (BBE), regarding his decease, "For I am conscious that in a short time I will have to put off this tent of flesh, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me." He referred to what Christ told him after he rose from the dead.

But there are some of us who will be privileged to see Christ return in our own lifetime. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17  (BBE), "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are still living at the coming of the Lord, will not go before those who are sleeping. Because the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a word of authority, with the voice of the chief angel, with the sound of a horn: and the dead in Christ will come to life first; Then we who are still living will be taken up together with them into the clouds to see the Lord in the air: and so will we be for ever with the Lord."

Either way, we are assured of paradise. As Jesus told his disciples in John 14:2 (BBE), "In my Father's house are rooms enough; if it was not so, would I have said that I am going to make ready a place for you?
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How wonderful then that we are headed for such a blissful rest. Life can be hard but we will receive our reward when we go to our eternal home.

On Monday, I'll tackle the subject of a startling fact I learned from an American preacher currently living in Zambia.

THE MYSTERIOUS PRESENT.

When I boarded at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind, a local family let me stay at their place during certain weekends. I deeply appreciated their care for me, being that I was only allowed to return home during Christmas and summer holidays. Staying in their cosy home, rather than a utilitarian dorm, was a welcome break for me.

In Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), I wrote about the mysterious gift this family gave me as a going away present for the summer. I had no clue what it would do until my mom helped me set it up.

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Before I left for the summer, the Rupert family gave me a strange gift of coloured plastic chunks and a bag filled with clear viscous liquid. Once I arrived home with them, Mom read the instructions and learned that it was a kit which would grow stalagmite-like objects in jars. She placed those coloured chunks of plastic in a clear fish bowl, mixed the liquid with water according to the instructions printed on the bag, and let the contents stand for a day.

Since the bowl was shallow, the stalactites resembled mushrooms. Even so, I thought the kit was amazing. "I wonder what other plastic objects would grow in there," I exclaimed as I gazed at the bowl.

"I don't know but the plastic needs to have a rough surface for it to grow," Mom said. She then placed the bowl on the fireplace mantel where I admired it whenever I walked past it.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.