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Counting The Days
The Cypress Times ^ | 07/14/2009 | Stacey Winder

Posted on 07/14/2009 9:14:51 AM PDT by Patriot1259

I know a guy who says, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go first.” Unfortunately, that’s probably how most of us, including believers, feel. What if we changed our thinking instead and looked at it exactly the opposite way? Think back to when you were a child anxiously counting the days in anticipation for Christmas or your birthday party or your first trip to Disney….

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I remember as a little girl lying under the tree, staring at the twinkling lights and glistening ornaments. I remember hearing the reindeer on our roof as visions of sugar plums danced in my head. I was always the first one awake ready to open presents and experience the magic of that most special day. Even now as an adult I’ve been accused of going overboard with decorations, with my motto being, “When you think you have just enough lights, add more. You can never overdo it!”

Here’s something else you can’t overdo…love.

(Excerpt) Read more at thecypresstimes.com ...


TOPICS: Religion
KEYWORDS: anticipation; childlike; christ; faith
Stacey Winder has written an article in the "Living Faith" section of The Cypress Times involving the threat of death by Cancer of a loved, the anticipation of meeting Christ and approaching that anticipation with childlike eyes.
1 posted on 07/14/2009 9:14:52 AM PDT by Patriot1259
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To: Patriot1259

Actually, I volunteer to go right here right now. Thing is I keep breathing so I guess it is not my time ... yet


2 posted on 07/14/2009 9:21:58 AM PDT by the long march
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To: Patriot1259
I've always looked at the subject this way. We have all been sentenced to life without parole. Some of our sentences are just longer than others. When my time has been served I'm ready.
3 posted on 07/14/2009 9:22:38 AM PDT by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
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To: Patriot1259
I know a guy who says, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go first.”

I don't think people are afraid to die because they aren't happy with the idea of going to heaven. I think it's more for two reasons: 1) No sane person is 100% sure of where he is going when he dies, 2) The transitional process can be quite unpleasant.
4 posted on 07/14/2009 9:22:56 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: Patriot1259

I admit to wanting to go to heaven......but not yet....another 60 years or so please.


5 posted on 07/14/2009 9:24:53 AM PDT by rwfromkansas ("Carve your name on hearts, not marble." - C.H. Spurgeon)
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To: fr_freak

True...nice post. However, the transitional process the USA is going through is HELL!

Save me JESUS!


6 posted on 07/14/2009 9:25:37 AM PDT by mikelets456
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To: fr_freak

I would say number 2 is my biggie....who knows what death feels like, even if I died in my sleep. It could still hurt. Nobody is around to say!


7 posted on 07/14/2009 9:26:10 AM PDT by rwfromkansas ("Carve your name on hearts, not marble." - C.H. Spurgeon)
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To: Patriot1259

We’re not supposed to look at it that way, that is why the idea of suicide is not acceptable to most, throughout history.


8 posted on 07/14/2009 9:37:22 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to...otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: rwfromkansas

Joe Diffie had a mildly popular Country-Western song a while back, “Prop Me Up Beside The Jukebox When I’m Gone,” in which he stated his desire to go to heaven, but that he didn’t want to go tonight.

My sincere question is: If you really believe you are going to heaven when you die, why would you want to wait 60 years or so?


9 posted on 07/14/2009 10:07:56 AM PDT by Overwatcher
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To: mosaicwolf

When my wife first learned she had cancer she said, “I’m ready to go!”

I told her, “Look at it this way; you might just get out of school early, for summer vacation.”

It has been eight years and she is doing fine. Surgery & radiation got all the cancer.

We both, however, are still looking forward to eternal “Summer Vacation” with our Lord Jesus, once He says “time to come Home”!


10 posted on 07/14/2009 10:15:14 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Semper Fi)
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To: Patriot1259

This is just wooley headed thinking. Counting the days until you die? To me that sounds like major Depression. Or possibly suicidal thoughts coming through a Depression, with the Depression being the natural bodily defence mechanism to acting out suicidal thoughts. I would reccommend a course of anti-depressants, maybe Wellbutrin, but also monitoring so that when the Depression layer comes off and motivations come back to the person that they dont use those motivations to kill themselves.

In this life we must be impeccable warriors. We have to be smart, we have to Know our world and we have to try to out-think the world and stay a few moves ahead of it. We have to remember that even if we don’t have any KNOWN enemies, thermodynamics is always there watching us for any slip ups so that it can reduce us down to the background ambient temperature (of dirt 6 feet down). We must be impeccable and not over indulge in feelings, and waves of useless emotions.

I worked for a particular person for 26 years who was a high up muckymuck in the Mormon church. Higher than Glenn Beck. He was always talking about the Kingdom of Heaven and which planet he was going to get to lord over after he died and this and that, on and on, to where if the occasion ever arouse that we would ever speak of anything except the problems at hand with the work we were doing on the job, it was always about what was coming to him after he croaked.

That pissed me off. It had been building in me this anger because I knew that otherwise he was a pretty smart guy but all he ever talked about was death and dying and what he would get after he did. So like any system analyst I was trying to figure out why he affected me like this. Was this boss of mine just greedy? Like the time he had been given on this planet wasn’t enough and would do anything to get more? Was I pissed because of the dichotomy of someone who was at once technical dealing in hard and fast, calculatable projects with designed outcomes, all the while dreaming about what a post-mortem king he was going to be in some dreamed up afterlife fantasy world?

So one day this was going on pretty hard and heavy, after a long discussion about technical details of our current project somehow his conversation turned to, yeah its a rotten world, and yeah the Prince of Peace is going to come soon so who cares about all of this (he gestures around), yeah the world is dying so who cares, its a rotten place compared to where he was going soon...

So I said to him: “You sound like you WANT to die...” like he was just counting the days and couldn’t wait. Like he wished that it wouldn’t be an antireligious and antimoral thing if he could just take a gun and blow his own brains out so that he could go and see Jesus.

After asking him that question his eyes went totally WIDE open and he immediatly started to fidget and sweat a little bit, and all those wild ideas about his glorious afterlife which had oozed out and was suffocating the room just seemed to suck right back into him and then the gates slammed shut.

Some years later I found out that back in the mid-50s about the time I was born, he had been in a mental ward for only a period of time dealing with feelings of wanting to die. Even though he was working with those problems, by trying to be the Impeccable Warrior most of his life he was able to keep those thoughts mostly under control. He would not usually allow himself to over indulge in negative thoughts and emotions of death and dying.

We need less “oh me, oh my, woe is me, I wish my afterlife would come soon” and more “lets shake off the blues, and be positive and creative, strong, vigilant and protective because life demands it”

:)


11 posted on 07/14/2009 10:18:47 AM PDT by WashStateGirl
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To: Overwatcher

The USMC has “General Orders” which apply in the absence of Specific orders. Here are a few:

“1st General Order

To take charge of this post and all government property in view.

2nd General Order

To walk my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing....

5th General Order

To quit my post only when properly relieved...”

Christians who eagerly await being called home are just on duty, following their General Orders, especially #5


12 posted on 07/14/2009 10:22:35 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Semper Fi)
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To: BwanaNdege

I agree, and while I am alive I am to be vigilant, prepared and ready to defend, without question, and to carry out any “lawful order.”

To give an answer, in season and out of season, regarding my faith in the LORD God.


13 posted on 07/14/2009 10:52:58 AM PDT by Overwatcher
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