Till We Meet Again

I told someone yesterday how hard it is to watch people growing older.  I said I realized we all grow older, and we're all going to die unless Christ returns before that happens, but it's hard, nevertheless.  I see people -- my parents' peers and friends -- who are, in my mind's eye, still tall and strong, leading our congregation in song, prayer, Bible studies, and so on...but in reality, they are gray-haired, stooped, voices growing weaker.  Some of them are in the announcements on a fairly regular basis, in the hospital or home sick.  They are old.  It's hard to watch, because I love these people.  Many of them have been members at church since I was a child -- or even before that!  As I was thinking about those people, a passage came to my mind.

^"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,^[d] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord." (I Thessalonians 4:13 - 17)

I have always loved that passage!  Hope!  We have hope!  I simply cannot imagine going through my life thinking I'd never see some of my loved ones again.  That they're just gone!  But no!  I have hope, I have the assurance that I will see them again!  And not only see them, but  will be together with them "with the Lord"!  I will once again hear my father's sweet baritone voice singing praises to his God.  I will see the smile on my mother's face as she stands before the throne of the Lord, worshipping Him.

So yes, I still miss my father's gruff words of wisdom, and my mother's gentle warmth.  I miss all that I lost when they died.  But I remind myself that I didn't truly lose them forever, and I take comfort in that.  I rejoice in knowing I'll see them -- and so many others -- again someday.  I rejoice in knowing they have already met the Lord.  I rejoice in knowing I will be with them again, but forever this time.

So I ask, "O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?" (I Corinthians 15:55)  Death, you have no power over me or my loved ones, praise God!