"Saying Goodbye"

I lost a good friend this weekend. He was not just a good friend but a wonderful example of Christ. You could say when you look at him and watch him work and live life, he loved His Lord. It's no shame to weep when someone we love leaves us. It's not a weeping of hopelessness but because we will miss them. Jesus was no different. He came into our world, in our form and shared in our existence as weak and frail man. He won the victory over death while feeling for our hurts.

What we have that others do not is the conviction that suffering and death are not the last words or the final realities! Beyond the suffering, there is God our Father who shares His life in us but allows pain. In this pain, He does not allow it to win. This Father who loves us so will not allow death to be our lord! Should darkness descend on us, should lightening strike us, should death overtake us, should disease ravage us, we are safe and secure because the Lord God Almighty has made an eternal commitment to us. He controls it all and invested His Son in our lives to bring us safely home.

Those who depart to be with the Lord would tell us they would never want to return to us. A place where only righteousness dwells, no hint of sin, no sorrow, no decay...not one thing that can ruin us again. Why would they want to return? And why would we want them in this world? Believe me, the day is coming when we too will stand in that eternal place before our loving Father and wonderful Savior seeing the unseen, praising God and never giving it a thought of going back or whatever we encountered as anything. Yes, sometimes saying goodbye can be difficult. Shed your tears but remember your Lord. Rejoice in hope! Be strong toward the Lord. The loss isn't forever. In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.