Pastor Buddy’s Blog

The measure of a life…

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Journal,

Does it seem like time is passing a bit too fast nowadays? Shut your eyes for a moment and suddenly 2008 is upon us. Makes you wonder if this has anything to do with what the Lord said –

“Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days.” (Mk13:20 nasb)

So, what does this have to do with anything? Very much for me. This month my mom would have been 88 years young. I think about her a lot.

In fact…

I have a measurement for one space of time that extends from January 23, 1920, to March 27, 2005…

You see, my mom was born January 23, 1920, into a family that would eventually grow to include thirteen children. This month my mama would have been eighty-eight years old. But she took her journey home on Easter Sunday morning, March 27, 2005. She was eighty-five at the time of her homecoming. Can you believe! Easter morning! The very day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

There’s more about my mom.

The picture to the left was made in 1920. It is of my grandpa Carver and my grandma Carver, and their then six children. (One child had passed.)

To the right of grandpa is Aunt Hazel and Uncle Holiday. In grandma’s arms is my mom. Seated at my grandparents feet are my Aunts Beulah, Cleola, and Claudia.

Talk about a passion for the Lord. The Carver family was endued with it.

Wish I had a picture of the young Carver evangelistic team. Some years after this picture my Aunt Hazel became an evangelist. She and Uncle Holiday held revival meetings with my mom as their piano player. I’m not sure which others in the family got involved. What I can say is that the Carver clan was deeply passionate about serving the Lord.

Aunt Hazel went to be with the Lord when I was only two years old, so I didn’t really get to know her. However, the Carvers have continued to produce a legacy of preachers. Besides myself and my son, Nathan, I have a number of cousins who are ministers of the gospel.

Grandpa’s brother, John Green Carver, was a pioneer minister with the Church of God Anderson. He was born in 1880. I remember him well. Don’t rightly know the year of his passage home. But I do have a mourner’s bench that was handmade by him. It is really a padded kneeling bench with a railing for the seeker to lean on.

Back to mama…

My mom was as pretty a Carver girl as ever was…

Yep, while all the Carver girls were lookers, my mom was as pretty as any of them. In fact here is a picture of my mom at about age fourteen or fifteen, when she was the piano player for Aunt Hazel and Uncle Holiday. She was fifteen when she married my dad. 

See what I mean about looks? I highly suspect that Grace Carver was a main attraction for the Carver revival campaigns. Hmmmmm. Could it be said that some of the young men were ’saved by Grace’? 

Course good looks just naturally passes through our family. 

But as for my own spiritual values, I’ve often shared how mama taught me the children’s prayer of, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ She was always at my bedside when I prayed. Mama taught me to bless everyone that I could think of.  

Of course mama had the same struggles that all we humankind have. Struggles come with the package of life. But if there was ever a picture of true salvation, that picture was seen in my mama.

Coming from a religious family background, mama had her own questions about the issues of salvation. She and her sisters had many a spirited conversation over how a person was saved. You would have to be a Carver to appreciate what I mean by spirited. These girls never lost their love for one another. They simply had intense times of fellowship.

Anyway, the Lord settled the salvation issue with mom shortly before her passage. Mama told me that one morning during her devotional time, while sitting on her couch, it was like the presence of heaven settled down all around her.  The peace of Jesus filled her heart. Mama said, if this is what heaven is about, I am not afraid to go.

Actually the Lord was preparing her for her journey home.

From that moment on the question of religion never entered her mind. And what I had often shared with mama is that religion had not one thing to do with her salvation. Religion is what men do. Relationship is what Jesus does.

Sunday morning, March 27, 2005, it was time to go home…

The evening before mama made her journey home, Betty and I spent time with her. She just wasn’t feeling very well. I tried to get her to eat some soup. She wasn’t up to it. It was early the next day on Easter morning, that the angels came for mama. She got to go home in the company of the holy angels.

There is a wonderful Scripture that comes to mind even as I write this blog. It has to do with what Jesus would do for His people. It says…

 ”To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:77-79 nasb)

So what is the measure of our life on this earth…

Well, for the child born from heaven we only have one measure. Our journey on this planet has a destination. Jesus is our life. Listen carefully to these Scriptures:

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. (Php 3:20,21)

“By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Heb 11:9,10)

“For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb 11:14-16)

Here is a song that I wrote years ago concerning ‘the Holy City.’ Perhaps you’d like to listen to it:

http://www.christianchallenge.org/audio/music/08_Holy%20City.mp3

May the blessings of the Lord overtake your life. And always remember what the great apostle said — “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast…” Eph2:8,9

Much love coming your way,

Buddy