I had to miss church Sunday and get a substitute for my class that I teach.  I've got whatever is going  around.  Sore throat, chest congestion, headache...bummer.

The lady who keeps records in the class called and said that one of my members died this week.  That was a shock.  She had gone to visit her daughter in Texas for a month and had a heart attack.

Death comes to us all.  The Bible says it comes like a thief in the night.  Unexpected, to rob us and take our most valuable possession--life.

Sometimes it is expected.  But either way, expected or unexpected, it still it robs us of the people we love.  My grandson called last night and talked for an hour or so--which was wonderful.  He is good to call me.  I wish I could call my grandmother.  Or my mother, or my dad, or Ken...and the list goes on and on of people who knew me, loved me and remember all of the same things that I remember.  When you live a long life--as I have--you lose people that you love.

Death has robbed me of countless people that make up the tapestry of my life.  I can count on one hand the people who are left from my generation.  Friends and family.  People that can give me advice and direction.  Who were my elders and contemporaries.  Fourteen aunts and uncles.

I am the last leaf on the tree.  In the November of my life.  And that is a fact.  I praise God that I have had the joy of serving Him with my life--due to the input of all of those people.  Without the influence of the people God that put in my life, I can't help but wonder how destitute my spiritual life would be.  What a blessing I have had.

Well, I just reread what I have written--to edit it--and it sounds terribly sad.  I'm not sad.  I'm not depressed.  I am thankful.  God has blessed me.  And even though I have lost so many people, I have all of the generations that have come after me.

"My quiver is full of arrows" is how the Bible puts it.