It's Never Too Late To Come Home

In all of the hustle and bustle of the week, I could not for the life of me come up with today's blog. 

I had a couple of good thoughts, but they got carried away before I could get them down on paper.

And then this morning on Facebook I saw it.  

A very short story that just touched the very core of my soul as I have so often in my younger years felt the longing for a place to call home.

From the HuffingtonPost.com:

Jennifer Noble's Cat, Scrub, Returns Home Five Years After Hurricane Katrina

BILOXI, Miss. — Five years after wandering away in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, a gray and white cat named Scrub has been reunited with his Mississippi family.

The Humane Society of South Miss- issippi says Scrub was identified by an implanted microchip. 

The 7-year-old cat was brought to the shelter by a Gulfport woman who'd fed him as a stray the past couple of months but worried about his safety during a cold snap.

Scrub's owner, Jennifer Noble, tells The Sun Herald newspaper that she was skeptical at first when she received a call from the shelter. 

But by the end of the first night back, Scrub had snuggled in bed with one of her boys.

The woman who'd been feeding him lives about 15 miles away. Noble says Scrub is in excellent condition.

If cat years are anything like dog years, that poor, sweet cat has been wandering 35 years looking for home!

When I read this story, I instantly heard in the back of my mind the old hymn from my days of boarding school: 

Softly and Tenderly, Jesus Is Calling 

Softly and tenderly 
Jesus is calling - 
Calling for you 
and for me;
Patiently Jesus is waiting and watching - 
Watching for you and for me!

Come home!  
Come home!
Ye who are weary, 
come home!
Earnestly, tenderly, 
Jesus is calling; 
Calling, 'O sinner come home!'

Why should we tarry 
when Jesus is pleading - 
Pleading for you 
and for me?
Why should we linger 
and heed not His mercies;
Mercies for you and for me?

Come home!  
Come home!
Ye who are weary, 
come home!
Earnestly, tenderly, 
Jesus is calling; 
Calling, 'O sinner come home!'

*******

What better time then at Christmas to ponder these words and think of Jesus giving up the sweetness of heaven to come to this broken down world to make it possible for us to all find our way home?

In The Sweet By and By

Many of you who know me know that we laid to rest this week - a friend since high school. When I got home from the funeral my roommate and neighbor asked, “How did it go?”


I surprised not only them, but myself as well, when I said, “We had a wonderful time.”



The unexpected answer to the question, of course, led to thought and questioning. How can one come home from a funeral and say, “We had a wonderful time.”?


The answer is two-fold. 

So many of us from high school were there, and others who were not able to attend the funeral have joined with us in the following days. We all first met at Newbury Park Academy – a Christian boarding School here in Southern California.


Each of us arrived at that boarding school (some three decades ago) under our own individual circumstances, with our own history. But I have since learned that God sometimes puts people in places for a reason. And over the years we nurtured those friendships that can withstand the gale.


We were more than classmates. In the atmosphere of that small boarding school, we not only went to school together. We ate together, worshiped together, cried together, got into mischife together and dreamed together. 

We became family. And over the years, that bond has held tight.


Together this week, we faced the loss of our friend. But we faced it with the knowledge that this is not the final chapter. That God’s Son came to this earth and gave His life so that that might be so. Because of His sacrifice, we know that there are much greater things to come.


I think Psalm 16 might sum it up.


Verse 1 says “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.”


And what can be more wonderful than having a promised Refuge when the hard times arrive on our doorstep? In Him, I take my refuge…


Verse 2 says, “I said to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’ “


We know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. We may not see the good in it at that moment, but in the big picture, it will all come together one day. 

When you first dump a jigsaw puzzle out of the box, it looks like a mess. But once all the pieces come together we are rewarded with the whole picture, and it is beautiful. As my dear friend, Al, so often says to me: “It’s all good.”


Verse 5 says: “LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.”


As it says in Psalm 23, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”


In spite of the enemy here – death and Satan’s lure – our cups still overflow.


That was definitely evidenced in the outpouring of love from so many, and the fellowship that flowed throughout the service as we shared music and good memories and even laughter.


Verse 7 says: The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.


Being God’s children, we have learned to delight in the place God has put us. Some of us may have gone to boarding school reluctantly, but we quickly learned that it all worked together for good – in the indelible friendships that still hold strong some thirty plus years later.


Verse 7 says: I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.


Even in the darkness of night – or in this case, the darkness of the loss of a loved one – we will praise the Lord.


In verse 8, it says: I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.


Satan would like us to look at Dean’s death as a defeat. As his victory. But we will not be shaken. We know that God’s love overcomes all.


Verse 9: Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure.


And verse 10: “because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.”


One might find this to be the faulty ‘stone’ in the wall of this refuge. Aha! Satan might say. But Dean did go to the grave and his body will see decay! So much for your faith in this refuge!


But read it again. It does not say you will not allow me to go to the grave. It says, “You will not abandon me to the grave." Because of choices made eons ago by both Satan and then Adam and Eve, death is inevitable. But because of Jesus' sacrifice, it is not the permanent thing Satan would like it to be.


For 1 Corinthians 15:52 says, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound; the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.


He does not abandon us to death. For God does not abandon those whom he loves, and death has no power over God – nor His people. It is a transition from this world full of sin to the promised land God has provided for us – our home up in heaven.


“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev. 21:4)


And finally, in verse 11, we are told: “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.


He definitely has made His path known to us – from those days in high school where we chose to use our lunch recess for prayer bands to praise Him, through the intervening trials and tribulations to today.


He has shown us His path and has filled our hearts with pleasure in spite of the bumps in the path. 

Because we do know that He holds in trust for us the “eternal pleasures” at His right hand. 

So we hold on tight to each other (thanks to His long-ago pre-planning) and to Him as we let Dean go, knowing we will one day know the full extent of God’s love in the earth made new.


For as Sanford Fillmore Bennett wrote in 1868 (and we sang together without accompaniment in that beautiful chapel):


There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.


So yes, despite the sudden, unexpected, tragic loss of our brother and uncle and husband and father and friend, we did (maybe surprisingly) have a wonderful, uplifting time in sending Dean off. Because we know that this is not the end. There are bigger and better things in store for all of us.


For that is God’s plan. And what He promises, he provides.


Be blessed.




Liz Carson Rosas
15 October 2009