{"id":3165,"date":"2022-08-07T06:35:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T11:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2022-08-07T06:35:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-07T11:35:00","slug":"deceased-memory-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/2022\/08\/deceased-memory-and-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Deceased, Memory, and Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some strange reason the web site came up on my computer.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>It was the site of my High School class.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>One feature of the site was a brief update of various class members. I scrolled and one after another, the descriptions included the word, \u201cdeceased\u201d – from my best friends, to teammates, to girlfriends, to unknown classmates (there were 712 in my Senior class). That same evening, I attended a Major League Baseball game with friends from my college alma mater.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Among the attendees, there was not one member of classes that overlapped my class.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>As I watched the game, I also reflected on great memories of classmates of long ago. A much younger friend came up the aisle and as he approached my aisle seat he asked, \u201cHaving a good time, Dr. Dan\u201d?\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>My response was \u201cSure.\u201d But my thought was that far too many of my college classmates, like my High School classmates, are either deceased or dying.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>What a grief-filled day!\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Then I remembered, especially since most of my friends were believers, that while we grieve, we do<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u201cnot<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>grieve<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>as<\/span><\/span>\u00a0others do\u00a0<\/span><\/span>who<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>have<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>no<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>hope<\/span><\/span>\u201d (1 Thessalonians 4:13, NRSV).\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>So, especially if you are near my age, contact a friend this week, before they, or you, get listed as \u201cdeceased.\u201d Enjoy memories and thank God for \u201chope.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some strange reason the web site came up on my computer.\u00a0\u00a0It was the site of my High School class.\u00a0\u00a0One feature of the site was a brief update of various class members. I scrolled and one after another, the descriptions included the word, \u201cdeceased\u201d – from my best friends, to teammates, to girlfriends, to unknown…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}