I saw a meme about coffee this morning that made me think of something that happened last Sunday. We were to have a fellowship dinner after church, and I was delivering something to the kitchen while Howard waited in the Sunday School classroom. When I went into the class, I was stunned to see my husband sitting alone in a chair at the back of the room, covered with coffee! He had huge splotches covering the sleeves of his (thankfully, brown) shirt, and stains spreading down his lap and the legs of his (thankfully, brown) pants!
"What happened?" I mouthed in a hoarse whisper, trying not to disturb the teacher who was taking prayer requests. He tried to explain, and I finally understood that he had gotten a cup of coffee, and balancing it as he sat down, he plopped into the chair harder than he had meant to! The coffee splashed into the air and came down on his clothes! I grabbed tissues from my purse and blotted furiously. Remarkably, (or miraculously), by the time church was over and the luncheon began, the stains were indiscernible!
We were eating at Chick-fil-A at a college town recently, noting all the orange shirts people in the considerably large crowd there were wearing. OSU was playing a big game, and there were plenty of loyal supporters. I loved watching the diners, especially the little kids there with their parents. One little boy, little more than a year old, was wearing the requisite orange t-shirt with a large numeral "1" in a white circle on the back of his shirt. The tot was being shepherded along by his dad, when, quick as a wink, the child strolled behind the counter at the feet of the employees! They smilingly stepped around him until his dad scooped him up!
Then I noticed a different shirt on one of the patrons. The slogan on the back read, "Well, I haven't been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma!" I remember meeting a college-age girl on a train once, who exclaimed how she would love to go to Oklahoma. Her eyes sparkled as she talked of wanting to see cowboys and horses in her romanticized view of our state. I was born here and grew up here, but there are other places I like more!
My husband was reminiscing the other day about customers he had when he worked in New Orleans for many years. One day a young woman came in to buy some merchandise, giving him a credit reference to contact, which he did. "Oh, yes! That's my daughter!" the voice on the phone exclaimed, vouching for her trustworthiness. "We are good people," she went on, and spoke fondly of the girl's late father. "We always kept our gate painted!"
Although Oklahoma may not be Heaven, if our sins our blotted out by Jesus, we can be sure we will see that heavenly gate, not painted, but covered in pearl! "And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." Revelation 21:21.
Horses and riders are not limited to Oklahoma, for the Bible speaks of white horses and armies in heaven in Revelation 19:11-14! And our Heavenly Father has had his angels on duty all of our lives, scooping us up from danger when we may have been unaware, like the baby in the restaurant!
