Do you believe in ghosts?
When I was a teenager, I loved scary movies and haunted houses. The scarier the better! I remember my high school best friend’s brother sneaking us in the movie theater to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the time I thought it was great to be terrified like that. As I grew up more, I realized that life is scary enough. I don’t need to watch someone else’s version of terrifying.
Some people claim to have seen ghosts. I have a close relative who says he saw his dead wife in the house after she died. Grief can do a lot to us. Can it make us see or smell the loved one who has gone?
Do you believe in ghosts?
Do we really want our loved ones to be back with us here on earth as ghosts? If they were Christ-followers, then the answer should be emphatically NO! They are much better off than we are. I wonder if Lazarus was upset when Christ brought him back to life? Had he been in Paradise? Or was he just sleeping? My human brain doesn’t understand the dimensions of no time where God is.
Do I believe in ghosts? I do. But not the kind you think.
I know when I go back to the house where my mom and daddy lived, I see their ghosts there. I pass a man at the grocery store and smell that he is wearing my daddy’s aftershave. I follow him and my daddy’s ghost around the store with tears falling down my face. I wear jewelry that belonged to my mom and daddy and see their ghosts.
Ghosts do not have to be apparitions of those gone before us. They are to me the memories that haunt us. The good, the bad, the ugly.
Choose to focus on those ghosts that are not terrifying. The ones we would happily welcome over and over.
One day I will be ghosts to my kids and loved ones. I pray they will be good ghosts to them and smiles will appear on their faces when my ghosts come along.
