We WILL rise.

Several years ago I received a note from a good friend..." my dad's cancer is progressing. His time here is probably down to days..." When I read those words I was transported back to the last time I was with his dad. I was saddened by this news, concerned for the grief this final act of life would introduce to my friend and his family...and not.

My friend's father did lose his life, but not once was he in danger of losing his hope: the certain promise that he, as a believer in Jesus Christ, would finally be transported into the presence of His Lord and Savior, there to enjoy life as HE designed it to be.

Life is hard, then we die. Death is, of course, a very present reality for all of us--the older we get, the more acutely aware we become of our mortality. We will all lose our lives, but we need not lose our hope.

Praise God for the hope we have in Christ, and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Christ through effective saving faith. 

For these, death need not be feared; it is a gracious provision that carries us back into a "face to face" real-time relationship with God. Without death, we would be eternal beings, like Lucifer and the legion of angels which were cast out of heaven because of their rebellion...eternally separated from God, without hope of redemption.

Death became the modality that God uses to foil Satan's attempt to co-opt God's crowning creative act, humankind. So then, death is the definitive "check-mate" and demonstrates God's mastery; always steps ahead of evil and the chaos of sin. Genesis 3 describes the event that initiated the rebellion of Adam and Eve to sin and it's necessary result, death; it's also here that we learn that death is part of God's bigger plan for hope and the redemption of humankind.

The rest, is history, 1 John 4.9,10...

"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son 

into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 

10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us 

and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

We know that love is a four letter word, spelled H-O-P-E; more importantly, we know that death simply marks the first day of the rest of our lives, 2 Corinthians 4.16-18...

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, 

yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary 

troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen...."

Every Sunday it's our privilege to gather with others in our community of faith and there, to go Vertical in our worship of God Almighty, the Creator, Sustainer of the universe; the Lover of humankind. 

His glory fills that place we gather in and He inhabits the praise of His people. In those moments I am frequently reminded of friends and family who have preceded me in death...and are in His literal presence even as we are gathered in that crowded room; no more heart-failure, COPD, cancer, diabetes, stroke, dementia, arthritis, infirmity, organ failure--no disease, no broken hearts, no flaw, no pain, no suffering, no regret. 

Joy unspeakable.

Blessed h0pe.

We will rise, thanks be to God. Stand-firm. It's a GRACE day.

Liveitwell!

A stone of Remembrance.

This is a till now unpublished blog I began nearly three years ago.  It remains unfinished...on this side of the veil.  I felt an urgency to deliver it to you, in this unfinished form, tonight...


I'm still gasping for air.

Braden died 9 days ago.  I spent time this morning at his gravesite.  Laura asked me "what is it about being there that helps you?"  Sentences began to roll from my lips in a staccato fashion as though I needed to convince her that it wasn't a silly investment of time.  Of course, she didn't need that from me.  She is his grandmother and swimming in the same sea of pain I feel over his loss.

The person needing convincing, permission really--was me.  He isn't there.  He is with Messiah--Paul instructed us clearly, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (Philippians)." Yet I find myself drawn to that place where we carefully, lovingly, thoughtfully laid his body; why?

I believe it's because Braden was fearfully, wonderfully made, knit together in his mother's womb and known in eternity past by God, fashioned in the image of God, creator of the universe.  His body bore that image.  He isn't in that body anymore, but it's all I have left till I join him on the other side of that portal to eternity, when we will stand together with that "great cloud of witnesses" in the presence of the King.

So we established a "stone of remembrance" in that place; it helps me to remember him, it gives me a quiet place to go and reflect, to talk with God about my pain and to honor Braden's life, his legacy.  

A "stone of remembrance..."

Liveitwell!