A gospel word in living color

The artwork shown above is the priceless artwork of my 95-year old mother-in-law's great-grandchildren who sent these pictures to her while she convolesces in a nursing home from a broken hip.  We saw them today on my mother-in-law's nursing home room bulletin board as we visited her.  As I saw these pieces I thought what an expression of love and joy they are.  They say to this wonderful elderly lady, "We love you. We want you to feel better.  We are thinking of you.  We bless you."

Visiting an elderly person in a nursing home is a stark reminder of the law of mortality.  It is a reminder that each day we are all one day closer to the grave.  As Reinhold Niebuhr reminded us, we have a sense of immortality, but we are not immortal.  We have a sense of what it means to keep living vibrantly all our days, and yet we are not guaranteed that we will be given that gift.  Perhaps our last days will not be pleasant, will not be something we would wish for.  And we have little to say about that.  It is the law of mortality.

And yet the Gospel word comes to us from God our Creator who, like these loving children behind the artwork, says, "I love you.  I am with you.  I bless you."  How good that word is.