Ten days ago she was in the car's back seat when I entered it. Dear friends had picked her up and later me, to take us to church. Neither she nor I could drive any longer due to health and age. Today she left this earth suddenly with a gentle passing. Her husband had left this life a year before. Then other church friends drove me to the funeral home yesterday to view her body and say goodbye for awhile.
I thought of the story of the little girl who was running toward the cemetery as the darkness of the evening began to fall. A friend nearby called out, "Aren't you afraid to go through there at night?" She responded, "No, I'm not afraid because my home is just on the other side."
It is a great and wonderful assurance to our souls who are Christian that we can say, "I'm not afraid because our heavenly home is just on the other side."
Early on my pastoral life I had a Sunday School teacher of little children wait until she could say to me, "A little boy in my Sunday School class listened so intently as I told him about Jesus love for him and all little children." Then she, with effort, said, "I wish I could go to be with Jesus right now." Her reaction was surprise which gripped her heart. It made her shocked that such a young boy would declare such wonderful love for Jesus, even as his life was just beginning here on earth.
Old and young know there is God. But young and older adults can never understand an infinite God, nor His creation and its mysteries. Who can explain His law of gravity? Isaac Newton, acclaimed to be the greatest scientist ever, discovered gravity, but couldn't explain it. Who can explain the miracle of reproduction? No one, but God can tell how babies are made in a mother, born, and usually grow through the years to a long span of life.
Acknowledging God's miracle power, a clergyman had an actor friend whom he asked, "Why do your movies draw such crowds, and my church service such small numbers?" The actor responded, with a smile, "I present the movies by actors who make them like truth, although they are fiction. You and your people present the truth of the Bible as if it is fiction." I fear that so often we Christians give the idea the Bible truth is fiction by the way we live and speak about the truths we claim to hold.
However, my faithful Christian lady friend joined her husband in eternity. He had left earth for heaven a year ago. To them I say, "Well done, good and faithful servants, enter into the joy of the Lord." Some day, near or far, I will hear that invitation. Will you?
