He's Gone

I received a phone call at exactly six pm on Sunday night from my mom telling me that my grandfather had died. I cannot really find it in me to shed tears. When I first found out that he was on hospice I cried a lot, but just thinking about all this, I can't really cry. One of his doctors wanted to put him on some medication so that he wouldn't have a stroke and die from that, but he had already been told that his cancer spread, so his response was "I am either going to die from the cancer or die from a stroke." He realized that his fight was over. He realized that God had determined his days were drawing to a close. I was not there in the last few days, but when I talked to my mom I could hear the pain that was going on. I could hear the immense pain and it didn't sound good. 
Harry Zeilenga lived almost 82 years on this earth. It would have been his birthday in about two weeks. He was a solid believer in the truth of Jesus Christ, though, so I know where he is now. He wanted to go to his true home and now he is there. I rejoice!
I got to talk to him one last time a couple of weeks ago right after he got released from the hospital and he sounded like the same old grandpa. He asked me how the weather was and I told him that it was gorgeous out here. Then I told him that I would definitely miss him, but how I rejoiced knowing that he knew where he was going. 
I would call my mom every single morning after this point just to find out how things were going. Some days were alright, but towards the end he grew restless. I could tell yesterday that it was probably going to be the day, just because it sounded so bad on the phone. My brother flew back on Saturday and took care of my grandpa for a few hours just so that my mom could have a little bit of a break. That means that I am the only grandchild not in Chicago, but I will soon be joining the family. 
I always figured that I would be the one conducting this funeral service, but that is not to be. I cannot recall at the moment all the songs that are to be sung at this funeral, but I do recall the song "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" which was penned by a young African American blues pianist after learning of the death of his wife and newborn son. 
For some reason these lyrics just came to mind from the song "There Is a Redeemer": 
When I stand in glory,
I will see his face,
And there Ill serve my king forever,
In that holy place.

Thank you oh my father,
For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit,
til the work on earth is done.

Saturday Morning

Well, the conference started last night and I got through it without receiving the phone call telling me that it was time to go home. For anyone that does not know, my grandpa was placed on hospice on Tuesday with the expectation that he would only live another 2 days to 2 weeks. It is a sad time, but at the same point he is ready. I talked to him on Wednesday and he honestly sounded like the same man. I expected to hear a weak, frail voice, but it was not there. 

About the conference....
I was kept very busy last night with constantly updating the Westminster website. At one point someone came up to me and asked if I had been able to take a break when everyone else did and the answer was a resounding no. Maybe I just take too long to generate web content, but the time went by pretty fast. However, in the end it did get done and Dr. Clark really helped me out by getting all his thoughts down quickly so that I could post them. 

We shall see what today brings....

Some Thoughts

You know, I was sitting in church this morning wondering about some things.  One of these is, if you are a Christian, what sets you apart from a humanist?  If you hold to the Salvation Army motto and nothing else I would argue that there is nothing.  Can you call yourself a Christian if you don't put Christ in your life?  

I was also thinking about how people challenge the idea in the reformed community that women should not be pastors.  I sum up all these arguments by simply saying all the arguments against it pretty much come down to: "it just isn't fair."  It is not fair that women can't be pastors if they have the same gifts as men, supposedly.  This, of course, is not coming from a Christian argument, but from people who don't claim to be Christians.  Well, along those lines, I don't think that it is fair that I am not making $5 million dollars a year.  I mean, why should I not be making that much money?  Life just isn't fair, right?  Why am I not playing professional baseball?  There are some things in my life that I have come to accept.  I have accepted that I am not going to ever weigh 120 lbs, unless I am like 5 feet tall.  I think we all have things in life that we simply can't explain, so we should not walk around with a huge chip on our shoulders saying that "it is not fair."  

Some of this is contained in the last post

I got to go on vacation the third week of December. Most people would think that that is not very much fun, but I got to go home, so it was a great time. While I was home I noticed that I had very few, if any, health problems. Therefore I have decided that all my health issues besides the first problem were just stress related. In a way I guess it is hard to avoid stress, but with someone such as me it is even harder because I really do not do much besides work and watch television. I found that a lot of the time when I was hanging out with people I had no health problems either, so it is just something that I guess I have to go through. I look forward to the day when I actually have a family, but that could possibly be more stressful. Oh well, I have to live in this day and not think so far into the future. Westminster's conference is coming up this Friday and Saturday and I am responsible for a lot of the web stuff surrounding this event. It will give me more work and it will actually give me a day off, also, which, even though I just started back to work, will be much appreciated. 
So, when I was back in Illinois it was pretty snowy, but I actually liked the snow. I only shoveled twice, but one of the times I actually shoveled more ice than snow and gave myself horrible blisters. Those have since gone away, so I am happy about that. I got to see my awesome nephew and adorable niece while I was home also. I had a great time overall and am sad that I couldn't stay. I guess, in a way, it was a good thing to get away because I really don't have that many friends in IL. Now, if we were talking about Iowa that would be a much different story, because I do have friends there to hang out with. I even hope that on day I can move there and have both Steve and Zach there also, but that almost seems like a huge longshot at the moment.
I got to Chicago on the 17th and left on the 27th. However, I didn't go both ways on planes. The ride back was actually on a train. It was a 43 hour long experience that I will probably never repeat. I did get to see with all the older people that couldn't make it up the stairs, since, somehow, I was able to get a ticket for lowel level seating, which I guess is more reserved than actually purchased. It was good to be a nice, quiet cabin for the trip though.
The reason that I had to come back so early was because Steve got married. I was an usher in this wedding, so I needed to be back by a certain date. Because of my desire to save money I took the train. Anyways, the wedding was awesome and I caused a few memories. One of these memories is actually captured on Facebook with me standing next to a waiter whose tray I actually knocked up in the air, but he caught the tray again. I can explain that story more in-depth if you really want it. So, after the wedding I got to hang out with some really cool people: Koop and Steph, Lana and Z and Kasey. It was fun to actually be able to hang out, since pretty much all the people I know right now are tied up in school work. We hung out in San Diego for a day, so that was pretty fun. It has been a week since the last of them left and I have been busy as ever.
Westminster will continue to keep me busy as long as I stay there, a blessing, but also, at times, a huge drawback, as there are many projects which I have simply dropped because I cannot handle them and the workload that gets put on me. 
Oh, by the way, I am not necessarily whining, but more contemplating.