Oh Glorious Day

This morning I am remembering something I haven’t thought of in years.




This morning I sat down at my desk and lifted a hot cup of coffee to my lips. I breathed in a warm, rich smell and felt the heat on my nose as it wafted up. And it brought me back to Camp Neotez… a little Christian camp just outside of St. Louis… one of my favorite places in the world. Something about that warmth on my nose brought me right back to a chilly Fall night when many young, growing families from the Lafayette Church of Christ gathered for a family encampment.

We ran around in our hoodies and dirty jeans. We roasted marshmallows by a campfire, had relay races in the ball field and bobbed for apples, even had a family talent show! I remember my awesome mom rehearsed with us ahead of time and our family performed a skit of the famous children’s story Caps for Sale at that talent show. It was the best… mom narrated the story and Harrison was the peddler. At about 5 years old, he had really nailed the line, “You monkeys you! You give me back my caps!” We had made a big tree out of cardboard for me and Mallory to stand behind (we were the monkeys.) Mallory had to be held… she was still a baby.

I remember sharing a bedroom in the stone castle with my friend Megan Bradshaw and eating cheese-flavored Pringles late at night because no one was there to tell us no. (The parents would put the kids to bed and go back downstairs to laugh and play cards and be adults.)

It was one of the happiest, most care-free times of my life. As I recall (in my limited hindsight) mom was free of cancer at the time. She was full of joy and doing what she was absolutely the best at! Energetically raising us kids to be fun, funny, good-natured, adventurous lovers of our lord! Playing a key role in the organization of an awesome family weekend with our church. Laughing and making others laugh and keeping the room alive. She was such a beautiful, wonderful person. I can’t wait for the day we are reunited in “Aslan’s Country” (as my dad and I fondly refer to Heaven, the land of our good Lord.)  She is the kind of mom I want to be.

Mom read me C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia growing up… and when I think of seeing her again one day, I can think of no better description of my feelings than Lewis’ closing line in The Last Battle:

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Thank you Lord! Thank you!

This is why the song, “Oh Glorious Day” brings me to tears every time. I hear those words and they resonate through my heart…. they penetrate my soul!

Living, He loved me… Dying, He saved me… Buried, He carried my sins far away.

Rising, he justified freely forever … One day He’s coming!

OH GLORIOUS DAY!