My friend just showed me a photo of her new young cousin. As well as showed me a 40-year-old photo of her sister as a baby.  Amazing striking resemblance. Her sister is passed on now – like 30 years – a tough cancer that had taken her too young. Yet this new baby cousin brings my friend the sweet memories of her sister all while being the unique person she is.

Likewise I am spitting image of my grandmother. People tell me I even sneeze like her, LOUD. Plus my daughter looks like me so much that I call her my mini-me. The hair and the face – there are characteristics that one can recognize even if we are very unique in ourselves.

I wonder how God envisioned this for us – that we have strong enough DNA to express face characteristics and body types – and yet the mixing and matching of chromosome rearrangements during meiosis over the generations give us uniqueness – and add on top of that our personalities – yeah that is an independent expression in us – including that LOUD sneeze of mine – a LOUD yawn too – of that feels so good.

God made us in HIS IMAGE – He probably likes looking at us and smiling at the resemblance and yet it is not looking in the mirror at Himself but looking at how He expressed His creation into being – I believe that we carry His Spirit because He told us that He instills that into us but also because I feel it – He is in us and we are in Him. Solomon would right that God placed eternity into each of our hearts – and that is where I find my mind wander even if I know my steps are to be one day at a time. And worry? Well, if we are to be most God like – we need to stop worrying about the things we can’t change because God can change things – at least He can bring things to fruition over eternity if He doesn’t choose to change something today. We just have to wait it out – we just do.

In eternity, I am hopeful to meet my grandmother once again – as well as my great grandparents and whomever gave me my DNA – and my sneeze – and my yawns. And I long to see God face to face – to see Jesus and feel Him holding me – to once again see a renewed spirit in myself and to see how God re-reconstructs us for an afterlife family reunion. Oh the Love – and wow God’s Sprit which is LOVE will prevail in being expressed in our spirits and we will understand God’s waiting and His LOVE – Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Imagine in God’s Image how He sees us – He sees us HOME – He sees us HIS – He sees us as more than just a warm fuzzy of faces – God wants to see His Eternity in our hearts. God waits and endures all things – and God watches us as His come HOME.

Amen

—

Ecclesiastes 3 NKJV

Everything Has Its Time

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

The God-Given Task
What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God.

I know that whatever God does,
It shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it,
And nothing taken from it.
God does it, that men should fear before Him.
That which is has already been,
And what is to be has already been;
And God requires an account of what is past.

Injustice Seems to Prevail
Moreover I saw under the sun:

In the place of judgment, Wickedness was there;
And in the place of righteousness, Iniquity was there.

I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,
For there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.”

I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth? So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

—

1 Corinthians 13 NKJV

The Greatest Gift
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.