Words of Hope: Eternal Life
Last spring, I read Dad and Mom a beautiful short story from Anthony Doer’s book, Memory Wall. The story tells of a young girl who loses her family and must move from Kansas to a former Eastern Bloc country to live with her aging uncle. We sat together and cried as we each related to the foreign landscape of loss.
Indeed, our family hasn’t experienced the shock of loss like this young girl, leaving everything familiar and being thrust into a completely different world. Still, death and loss have a feeling of something completely unnatural and unfamiliar. My Mom has moved houses after Dad’s death, and I periodically walk by their previous home. Every time is hard. Today, the garage door was open, and my first thought was to walk in and say hello. I stopped by most days to have a cup of tea, sit and watch the sunset or read a short story or poem.
After I remembered I couldn’t walk through the garage, I started to feel bereft, but then a huge hawk flew by. I looked around and felt that sense of comfort and joy again, which comes entirely as a surprise. I had a strong sense that Dad was reminding me that he was not in the old home; he was made for eternity with Christ and the beloved together. That is such good news. And though loss reminds me I am a foreigner in a foreign land, it also reminds me to look forward with joy that eternity is now and forever shall be.
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” – I John 5:13
