saved in maine

In 1975, I was set to graduate high school in a few months.  And then, my life was forever changed.  My best friend's mother died.  She was only 35.  In those days you did not even speak the word 'cancer'. 

Another friend and I picked him up after school to try our best to cheer him up.  Instead, he spoke of his mother being in heaven and that i twould only be a short time on earth until they joined her.  He was so calm.  I would not have been so calm if I had been in his place.

He asked us to be pall bearers.  And that Saturday, March 15, 1975, there was a terrific snow storm.  And inside, the pastor said the same things my friend had spoken two days earlier.  I had stopped going to church at that point.  I had grown up going to Sunday School and Church every Sunday.  The one question that always nagged at me was, "Why didn't Jesus come off the cross and continue to do good and to help people?"

As the funeral came to a close and we loaded the casket onto the hearse, the two high school pall bearers sat in silence in the back of the church.  At that moment, my answer came. He stayed on the cross for me. And that next day, I was back in church because I wanted to be there. I was saved.