Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me
and
Abbie Johnson Taylor.

Dolly Rebecca Parton went home to be w/her Lord and Saviour on Tuesday, Aug 25. A great light an shining reflection of Jesus, has departed this world. I never met her, I’m sorry to say. Yet her music, her humor and her love touched everyone. Echos of nearly identical comments flooded the air waves: “The loss just feels so big!”

I’m not saying she was perfect; none of us is. But she seemed to have a love inside that towered like her hair and just enveloped everyone she met. She often said she prayed to God to reflect His love to all people, and she did that in spades. The world will be a sadder place without her in it. But it’s a better place because she was.

My plan before Dolly’s passing was to continue my series on the Lord’s prayer on the phrase “your kingdom come.” I’ll do that next week. However, I think Dolly showed us a lot of what Heaven will be like–beautiful music, abundant love, and laughter aplenty, not to mention a life bubbling over w/God at its center.

I personally will miss her. I hope she didn’t suffer. I know the work she started here will be her legacy for many years to come.

Psalm 1 in the New Revised Standard version says:

“Psalm 1
The Two Ways
1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers,
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous,
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

I don’t think this scripture is saying that everyone who follows God will be wealthy, at least not necessarily in a material sense, though some may well be. What I do think it’s saying is that those who follow God’s ways will be at peace w/themselves and their conscience, as well as being a blessing to those around them.

And thus I say “Goodbye, Dolly,” until perhaps someday I’ll reach heaven, and then I can say the words to that very famous song by Louis Armstrong, “Hello, Dolly!” Till then, thank you Lord, for loaning her to this world for the time you did.