I Never Went to Lucy's House

This week for thanksgiving I will be going to Alabama for my first Wood Family Reunion. Out of the generations that are represented at our family reunion I am the only one who has the responsibility of carrying the namesake of the Wood family forward. I have grown up hearing stories of my great grandparents, but I have very little memory of my great grandmother, none of my great grandfather. My experience with them are stories and granite. I have never been to Lucy's house. In fact I never knew Lucy. I never knew what a family reunion on the fourth of July was like. The oldest dog I remember was Smokey who I quickly found out when I was young was not a squirrel hunting dog of a legend that Spot was. I have never had fresh milk from a cow. I have never played dominoes and honestly I don't know how. All of these things are things of legend in a family where I hold the namesake.

This week stories will be told about people that I never met or who had died before I had ever been born. People will remember things that have been outdated by my generation. To many people the stories and legends would me nothing but not to me. I will hear stories about people that I never knew and those stories will mean something to me because they are who I am. To me my last name isn't simply a name but it is a heritage that I have fallen into. My last name is a point a pride because of the people that it connects me to, people I have the privilege of calling family. The stories that I have heard all my life and will surely hear again are the same stories that I will tell to my son when I explain to him that his last name isn't just a name but a connection to a proud heritage that is our family. And even though he will never go to Lucy's house he will know the stories about her and about so many other people that have added to the our family legacy.

Heaven

Revelation 21

If a friend asked me the question, “What is Heaven like,” I would respond to them by saying that it is forever being in the presence of God. I would read to them vs. 3 and 4, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be among them, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” A God that is so Holy in other parts of scripture it is impossible to even see in his presence will not only dwell among us but we will be his people. In being the people of God we will be cared for by someone who conquered and defeated death, mourning, crying, and pain. This action of conquering wasn’t simply for the purpose of freeing us fore freedom sake but it was freeing us for the sake of God himself. God wants us to be his people, he wants to dwell among us and he wants to wipe the tears from our eyes. Heaven is where there is a God who longs to dwell with his people.