Category: Facing death
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Lazarus comes alive
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.) by John Shirk Our guest writer for the next 3 Catches will be our Director of Discipleship, John Shirk. John lives with his wife Amy and their 4 daughters in Chicago, Illinois. They minister to the postmodern artistic subculture and to victims of trauma and abuse. The…
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Death to life
(Click here for a video of John reading tis Catch.) “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.” John 12:24 It’s a spiritual principle that God has built into the…
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Called to failure
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.) by Marti Fischer I had a call to a mission, Signed in my heart and sealed, And I felt my success was certain, And the end seemed already revealed; The sea was without a murmur, Unwrinkled its even flow, And I heard…
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Send angels
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.) War sucks. I thought the picture of two corpses on the side of a suburban street with their roller luggage intact and the only thing standing after trying to escape, was bad enough. Then I saw a picture of a body covered up next to a…
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Traveling on
There’s no two ways about it: Death sucks. And death has visited our Catch community at least twice in the last few weeks. Priscilla, our longtime MemberPartner from Rochester, New York, just recently moved into a new home, and before she could even adjust to the move, she lost her dear husband, Jack. Born November…
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Never alone
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) These are truly the most comforting words I can think of right now, and I offer them to you for your consideration. One of the many names for Christ the Messiah given by the prophet Isaiah is Immanuel or “God…
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Are we living in a ghost town?
When it comes to road trips, I like to make plans. I love maps — the kind you get at gas stations that you can unfold and spread out in front of you where you can see the whole state and its major highways at once instead of trying to figure out where you are…
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‘If I perish, I perish’
In the story of Esther, King Xerxes decides to honor one of his officials, Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, “elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles” (Esther 3:1). So much so that all the other officials and everyone at the king’s gate bowed down…
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‘Till we meet again’
First the title caught my eye. It came in an email I receive through an online Christianity Today subscription. “Died: Joyce Lin, Missionary Pilot Transporting Coronavirus Supplies: The American crashed just months after she started flying in Indonesia.” Then I saw her picture and I was struck by a deep sadness I couldn’t explain. Joyce…
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Spiritual first responders
Empathy: to step into someone else’s shoes and feel what they feel. If you missed our BlogTalkRadio interview with Doug Stevens last night, I urge you, if your boots are on the ground anywhere, to listen to the podcast at your earliest convenience. We talked a lot about the pandemic, the divide in this country…
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When we go
These are truly strange times. On one level things seem pretty normal. We work out of the house anyway, so we’re still doing what we always do. Yesterday the neighbor’s gardener came and trimmed some of their trees. Gas stations still pump gas, repair garages are full of cars they are working on. Street sweepers…
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A Good Friday Prayer in a Pandemic
Our Father who art in heaven: Here on earth it’s gotten pretty rough. Your name is still hallowed, but we have lots of questions. It’s hard to find You when there’s so much suffering and death going on. We know Your kingdom is come, but it’s hard to figure out how Your will is being…
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When eternity breaks in on us
It’s impossible to live near L.A. as someone who writes every day, and not write something about Kobe Bryant this morning. You would have to be an alien who just landed on this planet to not know what went on 24 hours ago here and is dominating almost everyone’s mind. A helicopter crashed into the…
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‘… and also many animals’
I woke up yesterday morning to find that Emily, one of our Chihuahuas and the smallest one at barely five pounds, had died in her sleep. It wasn’t a surprise. In fact, a daily dose of steroids was what kept her alive for the last few months. We always knew when she needed more prednisone;…
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Walking into heaven
We had a thoughtful comment about death from one of our readers after yesterday’s Catch about Enoch, one of the two people we know of who have been ushered into heaven without dying. Our reader made a distinction between death and dying — how when serving in Desert Storm, he had no fear of death…
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Left behind
I almost turned around and went back up north to see Ron again yesterday. I got to thinking about what I wrote about in yesterday’s Catch — how I went there for myself, to renew the blessing I received from him years ago — that maybe I need to go again, focused on him this…