The following is a memorial to two women in our group who graduated before us: Kim Crowe and Karen Hedges
A book, in its original 1898 version as Intra Muros, was passed down from my husband’s parents to us after their recent death. Jim’s sister called to ask me to read it and let her know what I thought about it. She had read it twice and was ready to read it the third time. I obeyed, and am I glad I did! It’s about Rebecca Springer’s extended season of suffering and her vision/dream.
She gives great detail of what heaven is like; many other experiences I’ve read about, that this book confirms. Rev. Billy Graham endorses it by saying, “My Dream of Heaven [the latest version] captures biblical truths with emotional impressions.”
I have since given this book away in memory of my friend, Karen Hedges, wife of the President of Fort Scott Community College at that time. On August 31, 2006, Karen spoke to her friends at the health center where she was a volunteer. She was going to see the doctor for the second time—regarding a low-grade headache she’d had since July. She stopped by the cashier’s booth to talk, where I was covering for my co-worker’s fifteen- minute break.
Shortly afterward, I learned that Karen had died in the doctor’s office. Her mother was in the hospital at the time, and I thought surely it’s her mother, not Karen! But it was Karen. After the nurse took her blood pressure, she was to step onto the scales to be weighed. As she rose from her chair, she said, “I think I’m going to faint.”
Many thought it had to be an aneurysm, but it was because of a faulty heart valve. She’d had a heart murmur since contracting rheumatic fever as a child. A recent check-up revealed her heart was fine.
Karen’s death, along with Kim’s (as you learned in this study), has affected me like no other. Maybe it’s because of our oldest son’s second aortic valve replacement surgery less than three months prior. The doctor told our son after surgery, “You were one heartbeat away.”
Unable to sleep, I asked the Lord, “Why can’t I get over this?”
I sensed His reply: I don’t want you to get over this! Don’t ever put off for tomorrow what you can do today. Write that get-well and sympathy card now. Pray more. Make each moment count. Reconcile hurts quickly. Be alert to opportunities to serve Me and others. Keep your family priority. Make this book available at discount and give it in lieu of flowers. From what you learned in this book, build and maintain relationships—the only thing you will take into eternity, for I am coming soon!
“And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (I John 2:28)—for we are all only one heartbeat away.