Death

Sometimes in life we are blessed with a truly extraordinary friendship – I have been blessed in this way with my friend called Bin. Actually she is the brains behind this blog. She is the one who puts it all together and makes it look so great. For 17 years we have been the closest of friends. We now call ourselves sisters and our families think of each other as family.

Together over 17 years we have journeyed the good: The birth of seven children (my last child and her six), miraculous healing, marriage reconciliation, wonderful New Years together, fantastic holidays and just great fun. We have also journeyed the bad: Marriage separation, mental illness, wayward teenagers, and Mark’s cancer, long term illness and death. We have laughed a ridiculous amount, cried together and prayed and sought God together. They have been 17 very blessed years!

At the beginning of this year Bin found out she was pregnant with her sixth child, and in May we found out that after five handsome sons Bin and her husband Bring (his nickname) were expecting a daughter. I remember her ringing me and telling me and Jasmine when we were parked at a shopping mall, and we just sat in the car and cried with happiness at the blessing our dear adopted family was receiving. How exciting – a little girl!

Very early on the 22 September Bring & Bin welcomed their little girl into the world. With great excitement we raced to the hospital. They named her Sadie, which means Princess – so incredibly appropriate for the youngest and only girl but also because this little girl is a daughter of the King of Kings!

For ten weeks we all enjoyed getting to know this little bundle of joy, and then in the blink of an eye it all changed. After what was supposed to be a routine doctor’s check, Bin and Bring headed to the hospital and within days they were told their precious baby was very, very sick with a serious heart condition.

Thirteen days later on the 14th of December at just about 12 weeks old, Sadie left us for her eternal home prepared for her by Jesus as he promised in the Bible in John 14:3.

Tragedy has struck my dear precious friends. I cannot take their grief and pain. Grief and pain that I am all too familiar with, but this is a baby – it seems so senseless.

But senseless it is not in our loving Heavenly Father’s eyes because Sadie had to be born to live forever. You see, Sadie has always been in God’s mind. In Jeremiah 1:5 it says

God knew all about Sadie… God knew Sadie… God had holy plans for Sadie. But none of that would have mattered if Sadie had just remained a thought. Conception brings life and the minute Sadie was conceived God’s thought was given life! Our Sadie had to be born in order to live forever with Jesus.

And it is the same for Jesus. He had to be born so that we could live forever.

Over 2,000 years ago God came in the form of a human baby to make a way for all of humanity to be able to live forever. Through Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection ALL of us are given a way to live forever in heaven with our holy and loving heavenly Father.

Sadie has been taken from us. She is out of our vision. But Sadie is not lost – she is home. She is now a citizen of heaven, which is where we all will be one day if we have accepted the truth of Jesus. One day we will be with her and we will understand the joy that although she was here for such a short time, she had to be born to live forever.

Death is tragic but it is only tragic for those left here grieving our loved one. But for Sadie, for Mark, for all the others who have died knowing Jesus, death was their welcome home!

Sadie had to be born to live forever!

AND JESUS HAD TO BE BORN SO THAT WE COULD ALL LIVE FOREVER.

This Christmas CELEBRATE!!!

Celebrate Jesus’s birth for the truth that it truly is – OUR WAY HOME!!!

But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:57 (NLT)

Just recently we had a fabulous women’s evening at Manukau City Baptist Church. We called it Recycle Runway. A Runway Show displaying all second hand clothes with gorgeous models from our church family. After the show the ladies could shop to their hearts content as we had available a huge variety of recycled clothes at the ridiculously cheap prices.. It was so much fun but the recycled theme got me thinking and so on the night I shared this with the ladies…

I have four daughters and for some reason this caused people to have great pity on me. For a long time I thought my house must look to the outside world like a big red bin with a huge slot in the front. I am not kidding – bags of clothes would arrive at my house on a regular basis. My four daughters would descend on the bags like hyenas on a dead carcass. There was lots of yelling as they grabbed items they thought had potential and there was also the occasional, “mum could wear this.” And every now and then someone would shriek, “This is even too ugly for mum to wear.” Within what seemed like minutes the hungry hordes would depart with their treasures in their arms and I would be left standing there thinking, “I can’t remember Hurricane Katrina being forecast for today!” as my house would look like a disaster zone with the clothes that didn’t make the cut flung all over the place. Yes recycled clothes have played a major role in clothing the 5 Holmes girls for the past 20 years.

We all have a history. For many of us our past is exactly that, our past. We don’t want to remember it and the last thing we can ever imagine is that it could possibly be used for good. But God disagrees.

God knows that if you give him your past and your present no matter how painful and yuk he can recycle it for good.

Romans 8:28 in the bible says: And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Everything!!

How do I know this is true – because I am one very recycled person. God took a very angry, hurt and broken girl and he has cleansed me, healed me, made me whole and has recycled me, and he’s using my story for good. I am proof that the promise in this verse is true.

Possibly you are saying to yourself “Well there is no way I want certain things brought up, let alone recycled!” Look, I am not talking about sin or wrong-doing. The bible promises us that when we ask God to forgive us for our wrongs then he throws them as far as the East is from the West and remembers them no more (Psalm 103:12).

What I am talking about is experiences. If you give these to God and you decide you are going to love him, he will cause those experiences to be for good / to be recycled well.

Why would he want to recycle them? – Well from my experience with God it seems to be for two main reasons:

Firstly, to show you personally that your life has not been a waste. That those years trapped in hurt, abuse or illness, aren’t wasted useless years that would cause you to live a lifetime of regret. When you see God recycle them for good there is no longer pain over that time. And the second reason he recycles them is so that we can help others who are going through similar experiences. You are NEVER alone in what you are facing. There have always been others and there will always be others going through similar experiences. Letting God have those experiences allows him to use them so you can help someone else.

If you have not experienced God taking away all the wrong doings (sin) from your life and cleansing you and making you feel brand new, then let me share about the miracle that can make this happen. It is called the good news – the Gospel – and it is so simple. The bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). ALL! Sin separates us from the loving, but pure and Holy God. The only way this separation could be fixed was by God coming to earth in the form of the man Jesus, who lived a perfect life and so then was able to be a blameless sacrifice. His horrific death on the cross, taking on himself the punishment for our sin, was the only way we could be made pure so that we could then come to know that the God of the Heavens wants a personal relationship with each of us. It’s as simple and mysterious and as amazing as that. And this same Jesus can then recycle your past.

If you allow him, if you say “God you have my life” – that gives him permission to come and clean up the mess you or others have made in your life. God is in the business of redeeming and recycling situations. Make sure you give him the opportunity to do just that for you.