Unexpected

This was unreal! Could the name in the obituary notices be the same person I had brushed shoulders with so recently? It had been a scant two weeks since I had seen the name of an old friend in that column and had attended his funeral. I hadn’t known his present family, only the girl I had gone to high school with who’d been his first wife. Still, when I had greeted his daughter at the funeral, I saw who I learned later was his wife standing with the family.

This was the same name as hers! I e-mailed my friend to ask if it were the same person, but before she answered, I saw an updated obituary. The deceased was Don’s wife! She had passed away only a couple of weeks after her husband! She didn’t seem ill at his services, just a slight-built, youngish looking woman who was surrounded by her children. I wish now I had made her acquaintance, but she wasn’t with the group of people I knew, the old friends we visited with after the service.

How strange, and how sad for the so-recently bereaved family, to lose their mother so quickly after their step-father. I may not know the circumstances, but it touches a chord in my heart anyway. It also underscores how uncertain life is. None of us is promised tomorrow. Yet we live each day as if life will go on forever.

I had been looking in that column to read about services for a newborn, a grandchild of friends of ours who had been born prematurely with severe medical problems. The baby’s passing was a crushing blow to them and the young mother. Even though they had known his chances for survival would be slim, the loss was acute, nonetheless.

The Bible calls death the enemy, I Corinthians 15:26. It also gives us the promise that death will be swallowed up in victory when the redeemed rise to meet the Lord in the air (verse 51-54). Verse 55 proclaims, echoing Hosea 14:14, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

We look forward to a time when there will be no more death, and all tears will be wiped away, Revelation 21:4. Until that time, we can make sure that our passing will just be a doorway into His Presence, where life will be only beginning. Our responsibility is to trust Him as Lord and Savior. Jesus has already done the hard part.