Heaven Bound

There was a wonderful story coming out of New Zealand recently regarding the bride-to-be who was rescued by her bridegroom after being trapped for 6 hours beneath the rubble of the collapsed office building she had been working in when the 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, NZ last week.  In what can only be described as a miracle, 23-year-old Emma Howard was pulled alive from beneath the tons of twisted metal under which she had been confined by the terrible quake, by her fiance Chris Greenslade, who came to her rescue after learning of her desperate situation via a number of text messages she had been able to send him.  Incredibly, to the joy of friends and family, Chris and Emma (who had suffered only minor injuries from her ordeal) were able to be married as planned, a short 72  hours later.

I saw the headlines regarding this story but, hadn’t given it a lot of thought until I read a couple of postings regarding it on Five Doves.  I was intrigued by the obvious symbolism and wondered if there might be more.  The first thing I did was to consider the names of the individuals involved.  Was I ever shocked (although I shouldn’t have been) to learn that the name of the groom is Chris.  Chris is a derivative of Christopher which means “Christ bearer.”  Wow, of all the names!!!  Iwas just dumb-founded, how could this be a coincidence!  Excited about the groom’s name, I couldn’t wait to see what the brides name might mean and I found out that Emma  means “entire, whole, universal, complete”  which immediately made me think of “the body of Christ“.   Double wow!!!   How cool is that!!!!  The meaning of Howard – the brides surname – means noble watchman – WATCHMAN !!!!    And the grooms surname – Greenslade –  Green is the color green and a slade is a valley which to me was very much reminiscent of the 23rd Psalm –  “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters ….yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me ….”

I also think the numbers 6 and 72 are most likely signficant but, because I need to finish packing tonight for my trip to the mainland tomorrow, will leave it to the collective wisdom and insight of you my friends and readers to do so.   I always look forward to hearing  your comments and appreciate how much we learn by sharing with one another.   Please keep me in prayer for travel mercies.  I am off to visit my daughters and 3 beautiful grandchildren for some much needed family time, but, look forward to being back here and posting again by mid-March or so, if not before.

Until then, much love and blessing in Messiah Yeshua,  Cindy