That's All

Okay, I left off writing while in the air traveling across the country to get to two of my favorite people in the whole world. I left behind two more of my favorites, my youngest two. I can't wait until I get at least these four all in the same place. Soon. I am in a window seat just a few rows past the left wing. It's a full flight. Soon after we took off I closed the shade. We were in the midst of heavy cloud cover for quite some time, and having the shade up made it hot. Hotter than I like. Which is generally anything above sixty-nine degrees. That's what we keep our thermostat set on year round. Sixty-nine. I'm sure I've mentioned on more than one occasion that I don't care for the heat. I taught the kids at school to use the word 'hate' cautiously, mainly reserving it for the devil and sin. It's how I raised my own children, too. So, I can't hate hot weather. My kids read my blog. All of them. But I am leaving a place with temps this afternoon near a hundred and humid. I'm flying to the desert, where the temperature is likely to be even higher. At least it will be dry. If the Lord is so sweet to me, why does He keep sending me to places that are so stinkin' hot, you might ask. Hmmm. I'm not sure. I don't ask many questions. I just follow where I'm sent. So, I just raised the shade to find that the cloud cover has lifted and the sun is no longer beating on me. The clouds are small, white, and puffy (yes, I know what they are called. I'm a teacher, remember?) and waaay below me. I wonder at what elevation we are flying? And in between the clouds I see farms. Large neatly blocked off farmland, with a speck of a house here and there. And it's flat. Very flat. So, I'm guessing that I'm somewhere over the Midwest. They may be making announcements disclosing what we are flying over, which Southwest does sometimes, but I am wearing headphones and so cannot hear anything except what is in my own little world. Okay, back to my second recent discussion on the subject of living forever on this earth as we know it. It happened just a couple of hours ago, as my son was driving me to the airport. Some of my very best conversations are with this boy. Oh, the thousands of hours we've spent talking about the Lord and a bazillion other related things. Remember, he was homeschooled. Poor boy. Just last week he spent the week with the teens from church at youth camp. And last night he preached to a big group of them for Bible study and game night. The way I am with sixth graders is how he is with teens. Weird, right? Anyway, I'm not sure how it came up between he and I, but he was telling me at some point he had been preaching about death. His death. Now, those kids love him. Very much. But he told them that he did not want them to line up at his funeral saying nice things about him. He didn't want them to say that he was nice or kind or generous or fun or a good preacher. He said that he told them that he just wanted one of them to push the preacher aside, step up to the microphone, and say, "Jim loved Jesus. That's all." Then he told them to go do something fun, and not shed another tear. They would know where he was. Sitting at the feet of Jesus. And he'd be waiting for them. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree sometimes. I'm so thankful to be this boy's tree. And his momma. 3 John 1:4- "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." Now, I know that John is speaking of his spiritual children here in this verse. But I happily claim it, on several levels. The Lord is so sweet to me. :)