I was roasting beets this afternoon. Just staying busy on this 4 month "anniversary"...that sounds weird too. It is so hot outside so I just couldn't sit in the swing or chalk the sidewalk. I was cooking. Roger loved beets as does Karin, so I was cooking. Just as I was poking one of those roasting beets with a fork (for doneness) - the bright red juice began oozing out of the little prick hole and wouldn't you know it..my alarm buzzed and iPhone Siri said "Roger-Eternity."
I wanted to just sit down and cry. I don't know why I still have that on my phone. Perhaps I am too afraid that I will forget. I never seem to remember birthdays on my own, after all.
I thought about 4 months this morning while on my way to meet for breakfast with a sweet friend. While driving, I thought about how I had not smelled sausage cooking for 4 months. I don't even like sausage but I miss the smell. I still have not cleaned out the sausage splattered oven (which I had just cleaned after Christmas.) She ordered sausage. She did not even know. Or maybe she had a sense, she is like that. Intuitive. Sausage. A message from Roger on this day perhaps?
My brain, well, maybe my heart, has been all over the place this week. D-Day - World at War. I miss that with him. Rehearsal and Recital. He loved it. Celebration dinner for for summer. He loved celebration dinners. Celebration dinner for Emily - she requested stew - of course! Our version did not measure up. I told her that Ro Ro did not leave his recipe behind and we are still trying to figure it out. The front yard swing has been swinging back and forth like crazy today. It is almost as if someone is there, yet no one ever stops to sit and swing anymore. Walkers just pass on by. It was never the swing that they stopped for, it was Roger. I get it now.
Remarkably, as I stuck that roasted beet at the moment my alarm buzzed, I had an interesting thought. It was a praise actually. Beet juice is very red, like fresh blood. I found myself thanking God for his mercy and grace in that Roger did not suffer, he was not injured or broken or bleeding. He was here one moment and with Jesus the next, and it only left all of us perplexed.
While he might have been as surprised as the rest of us that he was departing immediately, I know he was ready. He was ready because the blood of Christ had already covered him and made him acceptable to enter Heaven - for eternity - with Christ. It was not anything he did, or who he was that got him there. It was the blood of Christ and that alone.
Roger's Lesson: He actually spoke to me quite clearly today - I suppose through that roasting beet. He was ready. Ready for eternity. Ready no matter the day or the hour, which we don't know in advance.
He told a firefighter that on Sunday the 9th. I don't imagine that he was talking about running and having a heart attack either. I imagine that he just meant, that no matter what, he was prepared for eternity because the blood of Christ had paid for his sin, and he had already accepted that gift of salvation. He had assurance of that.
I've found myself saying a lot lately "what does it matter in eternity" and mostly in reference to all of the stuff I am processing OUT of my life right now. Stuff mostly. None of that stuff matters in eternity, even if it matters right now. Roger departed living light. He left with not much stuff to process. I am quickly finding that the less stuff I have around me, the more time I have for the things that really do matter in eternity.
I don't want to leave with a really long list. I long for eternity, with Christ, with Roger. Now I am working on living it his way. With a short list.
Beets. Blood of Christ. Salvation. Eternity with Him.
Who would have thought....
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