Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

We didn’t go in, of course.  But I kind of wanted to.  I was curious
whether it lived up to its name that if you came in lost you could be
found.

I thought it would be an excellent name for a church. 
Wouldn’t you think so?  Now think about it.  Those who are lost looking
for their way home.  Looking to be found and to be loved.  Looking for
respite and redemption.  Always looking and searching desperately.

The
word lounge congers up several different things.  One of them certainly
is the kind of place this one looked to be, but the word also makes you
think of lying back and resting from your weariness.  Lounging.  

Again,
should that not be what the church does for the weary among us and who
doesn’t get weary?  I was extremely weary myself on Saturday because I
have been suffering from insomnia for the first time in my life the
past couple of months.  So any of you ever have trouble with that?  I
really don’t know what to do . . .

As I wrote Friday morning
here about 5 a.m., I had awakened at 3 a.m. on my birthday/anniversary
morning and then got up at 4 a.m. and started going.  The day started
at 3 a.m. and didn’t end until 1:20 a.m. Saturday morning.  

I
woke up again on Saturday morning at 7:15 a.m.  My body refused to
function properly any longer and I felt bad all day long Saturday
despite a two hour nap.  It wasn’t enough and I could hardly even eat
my stomach felt so queasy all day.  I thought I must be getting sick.

But
I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night and didn’t get up until 8
a.m. yesterday and felt great all day.  It was a great day yesterday
with wonderful worship services where I sang my heart out and really
listened to the words and music of the old, old songs.  I’m old myself,
after all, so somehow their familiarity and sameness from being sung a
thousand times comforted me.

Tom had had to work most of the
night at the newspaper to fill in for someone missing and so he had to
get some sleep because he didn’t get to bed until after 4 a.m.  But
when I came home from worship he was up and ready to go somewhere
because it was a sunny, beautiful day and we didn’t want to sit around
here among the boxes all afternoon being bored.

We decided to
drive over to the Mississippi gulf coast to eat a seafood lunch and
ended up in Gulfport at one of our favorites, but we had never been
there on Sunday before.  It was 10 till 2 p.m. when we arrived but our
waiter, Michael, who had beautiful blue green eyes and a charming
personality said the champagne brunch was still available so I looked
at the brunch selections briefly and jumped at the chance to have the
three course meal with their signature and delicious sweet potato bread
pudding for dessert and unlimted glasses of champagne, which I love. 

Not that I drank champagne in unlimited quantities, you understand.  It
was just the idea of it and the fact that we had not "officially" gone
out for our anniversary and my birthday yet.  It was a lovely meal and
I was quite happy.  I had talked with Tom for 45 minutes straight all
of the way over to the coast about what happens when we die and how it
is for all believers that we all just fall asleep and then are all
raised together in the resurrection with Jesus Christ returns in His
glory.

I talked with Tom about how his beloved daughter Kim, who
died suddenly and unexpectedly in 20 minutes in her home at 5 a.m. one
sunny Saturday morning, and how the dead (those asleep) will be raised
first (In I Thess. chapter 5 Paul says that) so that when we who are
left alive here on the earth rise up in the air to meet Jesus, we will see them alive and with us again as we enter glory. 
That is a great hope for us all.  A wonderful, life changing hope.  I
have that hope and have felt and experienced the glory of God in my
life in days like yesterday.

 I want to tell you some
more about yesterday, but I am going on too long already.  I want to
talk some more about the Lost and Found Lounge because there is much
more to say and because it has some more great metaphors in it.  I want
to talk about the still ravaged, decimated, desperately sad Mississippi
gulf coast that stretches for miles and miles and miles unendingly. 
And about our ferry ride across St. Louis Bay between Pass Christian
and Bay St. Louis.

But I am out of time and space so leave you with this.  This is
how I look at my own life from here in my later years.  I have only a
short time in front of me compared to the long years I have already
lived.  My life is much like the Lost and Found Lounge.  I once was
lost but many, many years ago I was found.  By God and by Jesus and I
was given eternal life.  I already have it waiting for me.  I do not
doubt and do not waver about whether or not I "will make it."  I’ve
already "made" it from two thousand years before I was even born on this earth.

I
have been redeemed and saved and have just recently increased my hope
and joy over that fact and deep belief in its truth.  God has greatly
blessed me in all things above all women no matter what is or what may
come.  For today, I pray my daily prayer that God will send someone my
way for me to minister to.  There were several yesterday who crossed my
path and my dearest friend, Thomas Phillip Andrews, was one of them.

So
I leave you with the same thoughts hoping that you will seek and find
the same joys that I have as a Christian.  If you feel lost in any way,
and I know that some of you do because I certainly have been in many
ways in my life even as a Christian, write a comment or email me and
let me share with you in your struggles.  Many of you already have and
I consider you my dear friends and companions in this life’s journey.

My
love for all of you readers and commenters and "lurkers," who keep your
silence and shyness but who appear out of the blue from time to time to
peek out and let me know you are there, grows daily and in my daily
prayer for being able to minister to someone, I pray for all of you. 
But if I can pray and share with you more specifically, just write me
and let me know.  I’m here!!  Here in South Mississippi in my little
"box" apartment waiting impatiently to get in our new house that we are
building that will be our wonderful new home.  I look forward to the
same kind, but more glorious home in Heaven.  

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee