Subject: 100 years aniversary celebrate in San Franciso

We are soon to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the great 1906 San
Francisco earthquake. The Smithsonian Magazine of course has run a special.
An article
tells about the heroic efforts of Frank Leach and his workers who had water
and hoses and managed to save the U. S. Mint when vicious flames melted the
window glasses and started eating on the woodwork inside. All the gold in
the basement was saved, and the great building (the granite was popping due
to
the intense heat).

But that's not the point of this little article. Yes, "a city of 400,000 was
flattened by a wallop of nature," the Katrina of that generation. "An
estimated
3000 people died as a direct or indirect result of the quake and the fires
that followed. More than half of San Francisco's residents were left
homeless."
The Smithsonian article also rivets home a gospel truth.

A tiny group of survivors plan to celebrate, come the centennial. Frances
Duffy, 11 months old at the time, appreciates her good fortune. My belief
system,
she says, "is that if you can survive something like that, the rest of life
is gravy." That's our point today.

The fact that you can read these words is evidence that you have survived
something whereas others, just as worthy, did not. Every one of us is a
survivor
of the death that is "the wages of sin" (Rom. 6:23). If the Father had not
loved "the world" and given His Son to take upon Himself its "wages" of
death,
we would all be in an eternal grave now.

Wise, thoughtful people, pause in life's busy tempo and ponder that. For
them, "the rest of life is gravy." No matter what our pain or affliction
might
be, it takes on a meaning that invests life with heart-lifting joy. We are
co-laborers with the Son of God, partakers with Him of His sufferings (1
Peter
4:13). The little group of centenarians who will celebrate April 18 at 5:12
a.m. can teach us all to celebrate the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by
yielding
our lives and all we have to Him who died for us. Living such a life
"henceforth" is "gravy" (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

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