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(Rev. Gail Berger dedicated her message to Tyson, the youngest of her seven sons. Gail expressed how glad she is that Tyson's story is "wrapped up" in her story, and that
their stories are "wrapped up" in Jesus' story. The following are excerpts from a message she presented at the Royal Treasure Symposium.)
"Growing old is mandatory;
growing up is optional and the Lord wants us to grow up!" She was radiant with an inner glow as she shared her painfully-gained new perspective on living in the present. She told of
learning to live in a new "eternal" time zone through the deaths of two husbands and the loss of her youngest son, Tyson, in a motorcycle accident. As a mother, she would have
protected her son at all costs, but God saw it all, and took her son into the eternal time zone. He protected both Tyson and Gail in and through it all, though His eternal plan did not
include protecting Tyson from this accident. Now God is healing Gail's heart and enabling her to speak of this experience.
"What are our lives usually like? Sometimes we want to get on the six lane freeway and be somebody and do great things for God." At other times, we end up on the 'blue
highways' - those small roads on the map that take you to interesting places but you never get anywhere. And other times, life can be like sitting in a plane with a hole in it and
everything's sucked outside - where you're standing still in time, with no energy to explore beyond the boundaries of your heart.
"There is nothing random that happens in the life of a saint," wrote Oswald Chambers. So we need to look at our lives in the context of the bigger story - the fact that
we're "eternal ones." Because we're eternally alive, we have all the time in the world, so there's no need to try to cram so much in before our earthly death. God is not after our
output, our achievements, how much we can cram into this earthly life - he's more interested in what's going on in our hearts. Living in the now - like Jesus did - relieves all the pressure
and allows us to experience abundant life. And we don't have to wait to die to be with God for eternity - His life force is in us now, and we're already part of eternity!
"I am learning to let go of agendas and plans, and to see life as part of a bigger picture, neither dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future. I have learned to honor
woundedness, because that's how God gets in. Instead of entertaining self-pity, I have learned to trust God ruthlessly. And I have learned that being a widow gives me great freedom,
opportunity and ability to minister worldwide."
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