Time Marches On

Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II spoke to the representatives of the 192 United Nations. This is the second time she had appeared at the world assembly, the first time as the new monarch of the British Empire in 1957. Now, an old woman at 84 with an old husband at 89, she still demonstrates the class and dignity which once was a factor of western civilization. Of course, I have been through Buckingham Palace in London, Windsor Palace outside of London and even the palace at Edinburgh in Scotland.

I spent one night in treetops in Africa (a hotel built up in the trees, with water holes and feeding places, where you can watch the wild animals come up in their natural habitat). The young bride and her new husband, prince Philip were at treetops when she was informed of the death of her father and that she was the new reigning monarch of the British Empire. Many of us remember her wedding at Westminster Abbey, as well as the crowning ceremony. She gives stability to every country of the United Kingdom. It is estimated that the queen is worth many billions and is known as the world's richest woman, even richer than Oprah. But, like the rest of us, the time will come when in spite of all her money, she cannot buy one more second of life. I have been in the chapel of Saint George at Windsor where her ancestors are buried. She knows that she too, will one day die and be buried there.

One day, I heard two very old women talking at my church, both were in their 90s. One said to the other, “it won't be long now.” The other said, “I can hardly wait.” The thing that most people fear most, transition, they look forward to, because they were prepared for death.

You may be right about some things, you may be wrong about some things, but one thing on which you should be right is the matter of death and the matter of God. 85% of Americans say they believe in God, just as 80% of Americans have contempt for government, if 80% of Americans have contempt for government, they would vote differently and our country would change. If 85% of Americans believe in God, their lives would be a living testimony to their faith, and we would have a different country. Most are just playing church, as one black woman said to me, “I hold on, just in case there is something to it.” She, like the rest of us, needs the security that she could have. There has never been an atheist who went through a near death experience (NDE), who was not instantly converted, who did not live the rest of their life as a Christian, who put aside material things. They had been allowed to have a peak at the other side.

The latest statistics about people who have had a near death experience is from 1982. At that time, about 13 million had experienced such, books have been written on such. A physician, Dr. Jeffrey Long, cancer specialist, has written a book, Evidence of the Afterlife, he interviewed people in 20 languages. He found about the same answers from everyone, everywhere. The near death transition experience was always peaceful and loving, everyone expressed a tunnel-like exit, with loving people, perfect in every way, no longer debilitated by pathology, lovingly greeting them on the other side.

As a totally blind person for most of my life, I can understand this supernatural, magical gift from God. I have not seen anything for a very long time, but I never meet anyone, anywhere that God does not impress upon my psyche, their appearance. It is rather general, but I certainly have a general idea that you normal people see...and you take so lightly and for granted. I would like to see my two grandsons, my son, but from just being around them there has been a transmission that takes place with my other senses, so that I know what they would look like if I could see them...even their photographs. I cannot see food, but from the taste, I can have a definite mental image.

Do not make the mistake of short changing God, many who “think” they believe in his blessing, who think they believe in eternity, who ”think” they are prepared to die, would work night and day, piling up every dollar possible to buy this assurance, which is a free gift.

In the great flu epidemic of 1918, there were many deaths in the community in which my parents lived, among the many deaths in my mothers home, and my mother was a child of 7 years, was her young brother Ned, a 3 year old. My mother, and her mother, would talk about the beauty of Ned until my grandmothers death at 80, every beautiful young boy, she would see, her entire life, she would remark, “he looks just like Ned.” They talked of the handmade wood box, put in the back of a buggy and take him to the cemetery a short distance from the house. I never knew my grandfather, my mother's father, except as an old man, but my mother and my grandmother told how he took the wood box out of the buggy and carried it to the grave. MY uncle asked him if he could help him, he said, “no, an army of a thousand could not help me today.”

Faith is needed in a time of sorrow as well as times of joy, you have sorrow in loss, but joy in gain. Both happen at the time of transition of death, is it not remarkable, let the evolutionists try to explain this, the same eyes, the lachrymal glands, have a different chemistry involved in tears of sorrow and tears of joy.