{"id":36,"date":"2006-10-05T14:57:50","date_gmt":"2006-10-06T02:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dannyiverson.wordpress.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2011-09-21T03:38:29","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T03:38:29","slug":"the-church-is-a-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"The Church is a Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am seeing more than ever that the Church of Jesus Christ is indeed a family.\u00a0 It is a family that is under the Lordship of a powerful Father, and a family that will love and even die for each other.\u00a0 On Sunday October 1st, one of our family members here at Trinity Reformed Church went home to be with Dad. Her name was <\/span>Laura Rieger<\/span>. A mother, a wife, a friend and a servant to the Most High God.\u00a0 She was like a second mom to me, and it wasn\u2019t just because she fed me all the time before I got married to Kimberly.\u00a0 No, she was the type of woman who could not help but show motherly love, and the type of woman who you always felt safe around.\u00a0 Yes, there are times when family feuds happen in our church, just like in the home. And sometimes mothers always have to be right, but in the end they just love you, even if you don\u2019t always agree with them.\u00a0 Laura has three precious children, Meagan (11) Anthony (15), and AJ (20). She loves those kids so much, and as she grew closer and closer to Jesus I got the privilege of watching the love increase exponentially.\u00a0 They are going to miss her a lot. So is her husband John.\u00a0 God used Laura so much to bring John to Jesus, and now John is a deacon in the church and a powerful man of faith.\u00a0 I love that guy so much. Its hard for him right now, but He is trusting the plan of God and knows that his Father in Heaven writes the best stories. Why God called Laura home, I don\u2019t know. I have been wrestling with it a lot in my mind and have been thinking all kinds of thoughts. In my heart I have this strange confidence that she is full of eternal joy and truly worshiping God with none of the barriers that this world always put in the way.\u00a0 Her sicknesses and pain that she always suffered from, I know now are gone. I think the thing I am most happy about is that Laura gets to see the end of the story.\u00a0 She was a part of it and now her role in it is complete, and she has seen the end and the full measure of the Glory of God in the story of redemption here on earth. I must say that I envy her.\u00a0 This morning after breakfast I lay down with my son on my chest to help him fall asleep, and I got a picture in my mind of her hugging me. She was a wonderful hugger, and anytime I saw her and didn\u2019t go up to her and give her a hug I got a scolding.\u00a0 Well, in this day dream I got one last hug from Laura, and it was a special one.\u00a0 It felt like she was right there. God I miss her.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am seeing more than ever that the Church of Jesus Christ is indeed a family.\u00a0 It is a family that is under the Lordship of a powerful Father, and a family that will love and even die for each other.\u00a0 On Sunday October 1st, one of our family members here at Trinity Reformed Church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[250],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theological-reflections","tag-laura-rieger-death-in-newark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}