a glimpse towards Sunday 1.31.14
This past week I found out that my mother is dying. My mom, who lives in Oregon, has been a diabetic for as long as I can remember and has never taken active steps in managing it. She had a stroke just before Christmas, and then went into the hospital last week because she was “dangerously close to becoming septic.” She goes through periods of decent health, but then just sort-of lets it go and her body declines.
My sister called Jen and said that she is concerned that I don’t really acknowledge how bad it is – as if I’m in denial or something. My sister told Jen that we really need to get out there sometime soon if we want to see her before passing, or at least before she is in really, really bad shape and out of it. So, I guess we’ll try and figure out getting the family out to Oregon sometime in the next few months.
I don’t know how to grieve, I guess. Death is foreign to me. Sure, I’ve known people who have died, but the only person who I really knew and loved who has died was my father. About 13 years ago he passed away. (A real quick back-story: my dad wasn’t really my dad, but was the closet thing that I had to a dad. He married my mom when I was pretty young; I’ve never known my biological father). Anyway, when he passed, I shed a few tears, but I don’t think I have even really fully grieved his death. How do you grief the loss of someone who isn’t really your own?
So, with regards to my mom, I guess I don’t know how to grieve her imminent death.
This weekend, we’re going to be looking at how people responded to the death of Jesus. Two unlikely characters, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, were among the first to Jesus’ side when he died. We’ll look at how they handled Jesus’ death, and perhaps we, even I, can learn something from them.
Join us Sunday at either 9:00am or 11:00am. You’ll have plenty of time to make it home for all the great Super Bowl commercials.
Joe Braun
Pastor of Community Groups
Weekly Giving | 01/26/2014
$27,710.30
Weekly Need $29,000.00
