It was my dear friend Aaron’s birthday and he had no idea what surprise was in store for him: My family and I were going to drive 12 hours and show up at his house unannounced (don’t worry, we planned it with his wife, Laura). The visit was a long time coming. Aaron and I hadn’t seen each other in person for three years. The long distance, expense and our growing families made it hard to do more than talk on the phone.
“Remember me.” Every Easter I come back to those two words. They never get old. I know that I’ve previously shared the piece below that I wrote, but it seems like every year readers don’t get tired of it either. We all need to be reminded that we have nothing to offer Jesus and everything to gain. I invite you to revisit these two words and remember the one who loves you most.
I have a brother and sister who died in a plane crash when they were 10 and 14 years old. Although I only have one memory of them, I definitely felt their absence growing up. I know my father did too.
I have a brother and sister who died in a plane crash when they were 10 and 14 years old. Although I only have one memory of them, I definitely felt their absence growing up. My father will tell you that he still does.
Last Sunday, I was standing at the back of the auditorium in our church, and all of a sudden during worship, I heard a loud commotion coming from somewhere nearby. I noticed it because the praise music is pretty loud, so whoever was making the noise was doing so at a high volume.
When I was in third grade, I had this dream I still remember. I was in a red-carpeted mansion with a wide staircase going up from the foyer. A beautiful woman was walking down the stairs in a white evening gown. She was my wife, and I loved her. Then I woke up.
The other day, someone asked me to name my favorite book other than the Bible. That’s impossible for me because I have seven books that meet that standard: the ones that make up C.S. Lewis’ children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia.
The other day, I let my three-year-old daughter ride her scooter on the sidewalk in front of our house, despite my irrational fear of her suddenly being kidnapped by a random psychopath. I wasn’t especially worried about it because I was landscaping just a few feet away. Occasionally, I looked down the slope from our house to make sure she wasn’t going too far down the sidewalk.
Tonight, I was on my way upstairs to go to bed when I noticed a little army of ponies, dollhouse family members, and plastic toy accessories lined along the bottom step. One of my little girls had placed them there very deliberately, so I decided to leave them, rather than clean them up.
One time I agreed to go tubing down a river with a bunch of friends, thinking it would be something akin to whitewater rafting. It wasn’t. We basically just sat in inner-tubes for several hours and took a slow-moving ride down a shallow river. It sounds easy enough, and generally it is, but the hard part is keeping up with all your friends.
In 1988, a charlatan named Edgar C. Whisenant published a book called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988. In it, he predicted that Jesus would return at some point between September 11 and 13 of that year. People actually believed him, and unfortunately, my dad was one of them.
I was 10 years old when I saw my neighbor run over my dog, Spot. In a horrific flash, Spot went under the tire, thrashed around in the front yard for a few seconds and then collapsed in the ditch. I screamed out his name and ran to his side, hoping that I could somehow stop the inevitable.
Christmas was missing. Gone. I had looked everywhere, and he was nowhere to be found. “Christmas” is my daughter’s favorite toy – a stuffed dog we bought her on Christmas Eve, just a few days before she was born.
The other day, my two-year-old daughter was standing in the kitchen, randomly saying, “Jesus was born, Jesus was born!” So I said, “Jesus died. He rose again, He went to Heaven, and – guess what? He’s coming back to see us!” As soon as the phrase, “He’s coming back to see us” left my mouth, I winced, reflexively thinking, “I shouldn’t tell her that. She might actually expect Him to come visit sometime soon.”
Last Friday afternoon, I got a call from my neurologist’s office. I had recently gotten an MRI, and my doctor’s secretary had called to say my doctor wanted me to see an oncologist. I didn’t know why my doctor wanted me to see a cancer specialist; and unfortunately, the secretary didn’t either. “Please, if you know what this is about, tell me,” I said. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I don’t, but I’ll have the doctor call you back today.”
