This Christmas was different.
This Christmas there was the
celebration and the joy,
the time with our families,
the excitement of the little
ones.
There was also deep sadness.
There was the knowledge of profound
loss.
Amidst all the activity, so many
thoughts fluttered in.
Thoughts of my dear Aunt and my
cousins.
Thoughts of my Uncle Henry going
home to Jesus,
the day before Christmas.
These days come.
So unseen. Unplanned. Unknown.
But we do not fear.
"Never be
afraid to trust
an unknown future
to a known God."
- Corrie Ten Boom
I grieved with my cousins and
wondered.
I wondered, “why not me?”
How is it fair
that I go home and my life continues,
mostly the same.
But suddenly, for them, life will
never be the same.
But we know truth.
And we trust.
The preacher said:
“There is Saving Grace,
There is Living Grace,
And there is Dying Grace.”
Oh, God is good.
“Praise be to the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy
he has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish,
spoil or fade.
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
who through faith are shielded by God’s power
until the coming of the salvation
that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
In all this you
greatly rejoice,
though now for a
little while you may have had to suffer grief
in all kinds of trials.”
1 Peter 1:3-6
Just before the sun went down,
I went to the grave.
A shadow fell in the shape of a
cross,
on the fresh red dirt.
There is a LIVING hope!
By the power of Jesus and the cross,
this is not the end.
There is glory waiting on the other side.
“Jesus said to her,
‘I am the resurrection and the life;
he who believes in Me will live even if he
dies,
and everyone who lives and believes in Me will
never die.
Do you believe
this?’"
John 11:25
