**I could probably count this as a continuation from my previous post…as I touch slightly on the same topics**

As I gather myself and prepare for what’s to probably be a tough few weeks, I have had to gain some perspective.  Tomorrow, I’m going in for surgery.   A major surgery.  Me being the overly dramatic, worst case scenario person I am(I’m working on that…) the possibilities of bad things have been rolling through my mind for awhile now.  The worst being that I don’t wake up.  I try not to be so morbid and think this but I just can’t help it.  And at times these thoughts have overwhelmed me.  Silly me.  Yet over the last few weeks I have seen a young mother being taken into eternity as cancer overtakes her earthly body; leaving behind a precious baby girl and her husband.  I have seen a Dad and Grandfather fall asleep one night and not wake up the next morning; leaving behind a devastated wife and family.  Oh friends, these stories will rip your heart right out.  Yet at the same time, help you to gain eternal perspective.  This world is not our home.  Our lives are temporary and sometimes are taken much quicker than we could possibly imagine.  In James 4:14 it says “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”  James very matter of factly reminds us that we are simply a ‘mist’!  Our lives are fleeting.  We have nothing solid on this earth.  Nothing is forever here.  We are here only for a little while and then we are gone.  And life will go on without us.

Why so grim Dawn; you might say.   I don’t know.  Maybe I am being really dramatic and over the top.  It just seems that so many of us, myself included, so often get caught up in the trivial.  The he said, she said, stupid stuff.  We find ourselves worried about what is on a stupid red coffee cup.  We find ourselves tearing down the Kingdom of Christ.  We find ourselves worrying about what someone did or what someone said.  Why aren’t we finding ourselves praying over the sick, lifting up the broken, loving the unloveable, forgiving like Christ has forgiven us?  Why aren’t we finding ourselves in constant worship with the one TRUE and HOLY God?

I’m not perfect, you aren’t perfect.  And life is so short.  How about we try and invest our time in things that have an eternal meaning?  How about we show who Christ is in everything we do?  How about remembering that we are but a mist. We are here for only a little while so heed that.  Is their something you have been putting off, that you should do?  Is their someone that you need to go to and make things right with?  They may not be here tomorrow.

As I have prepared myself for surgery I have wanted to feel settled.  I do.  I have prayed that the Lord prepare my heart, that He place anything on my heart that I am to confess to Him, that I need to handle with others or to make right.  I have.  It doesn’t mean that all that I have done has been accepted by others.  It doesn’t mean I have received the responses I have wanted.  It doesn’t’ mean I got the happy ending on everything I had selfishly hoped for.   It does mean I have done all that I believe the Lord has directed me to do up to this point.  It does mean that I believe my heart is right. Therefore, I am settled.

This life is a but a vapor.  Eternity is forever.  Live for eternity today.  Can you start by praying for me?  Can you pray that all goes well with surgery tomorrow?  I would truly appreciate that.  And, I’d love to pray for you.  How can I do that?

More later………