A Hope That is Living - This is Not the End

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