A fan of word pictures...

I was attending an absolutely heart wrenching/warming funeral this weekend for a dear friend of the family. She was a saint that graced us with her presence for only 48 very short years. My home church's sanctuary of over 2,200 seats was nearly filled to capacity. However the main reason I choose to write this post is in regards to what one of my favorite people said at the funeral. Our executive Pastor Doug Holck delivered an absolutely devastating word picture (his term not mine) for the eulogy. It is perfect for casting God-sized vision in a message and wonderfully bittersweet and capable of creating perspective at such a tough funeral as my wife and I found ourselves. I shall spare you the suspense and allow to read what I begged him to post after hearing it. Here it is in it's entirety:

At the "Celebration of Life" Service for Rose MacAlpine, I shared the following account of a flying experiencing while traveling with our Pastor, GL Johnson, some friends and associates:

One of the memories of my time here at PC is a trip with Pastor Johnson, Ed Baloian, and a couple of others on our staff. We were flying in Ed’s plane, returning home via Arizona. In the distance I could see Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental US. The more I looked at it through the window of the plane, the more certain I was that we were going to crash into the mountain—it would be the end. Finally, trying to sound brave, but wanting to alert the pilot to the looming mountain, I said something to Ed, who was facing me. Without looking over his shoulder, he stated, “If you can see the horizon beyond the mountain, you’ve nothing to worry about. You’ll fly right over it. You’re in trouble, when all you can see is the mountain.”

Some would see death as a mountain, spelling an end. Rose saw it as a fly over point as she moved into the forever horizon of God’s eternal heaven.

If all you can see is the mountain, you’re in trouble.

I told you it was good; in case you are interested in more goodies I have him linked in the side bar just over to the right.

What you don't know...

can kill you, or at least your new dog. We surprised our son this Christmas with a new puppy that we had picked out from the pound. But little did we know what lurked in the intestines of what would become a very temporary member of our family. After many disasterous bodily expulsions we decided it was time to go to the vet. There the vet informed us as to what was ailing our little puppy. It is called Parvo and it is basically a death sentence for puppies unless you can fork over about $2,000 or more for a hospital stay. Needless to say we couldn't and so "Pico" now lives in the proverbial big farm where he can be happy and run and play as much as he wants.


Side Note- Telling your kid that the dog died is about the hardest thing my wife and I have had to do in a long time.