itsawonderfilledlife

Days ago I received an email from a lovely lady, catching up her email group about the status of the health of her hubby, dealing with terminal cancer. I read, I sighed … the end seemed near.

And now his end has opened the door for his greatest beginning.

Death can be hard. It is a separation from those we love. It is an end to life as we know it. It is absence of presence.

But death does not have to be … final.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 is a verse that hubby (who is a pastor) often quotes when dealing with death and dying, tears and grief, separation and absence. In a nutshell (Carole version) it says,

“by the way, I almost forgot, when you are faced with the death of another follower of Christ, don’t worry. We do not mourn as those who have no hope”

The hope that is available to all who choose to accept it is the hope that the birth of Christ (which was celebrated just weeks ago) provided. Christ, the redemption, or Savior, of our sins. Because of His sacrificial death on a cross, we never have to experience death the same way. Death is no longer an eternity of nothingness, or an eternity of suffering. It is an eternity of life, and not just life as we have it here and now, but eternity without “mourning, or crying or pain.”

This hope is not something easy to understand or explain.

This hope is kind of like those bulbs that you might have planted back in the fall. They were hard and lifeless. Yet, we planted them in the ground, believing that their energy and life were simply dormant, sleeping. We had hope that one spring day, the kinetic energy within would awaken, and that the life within would burst through the ground … beautifully reminding us of the new and fresh life that comes from that which sleeps for a time … then comes fully alive.

May we accept the hope that allows us to mourn differently … hope-fully.