Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

All Together

We're home from our whirlwind trip to Illinois for my grandmother's funeral. I'm so glad we were able to go and spend time with my family, remembering Grandma and celebrating her life as a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, friend, and child of God. Family was so important to her and I think it meant a lot to her children that so many of her family could gather around to celebrate her life and miss her together.
Saturday morning we made a big breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy. It was the kind of breakfast Grandma made for us when we went to visit at her house. As my parents and aunts and uncles, great-aunts, cousins, and children of cousins filled the kitchen and laughed over our meal, I thought how much Grandma would love this. And then I remembered that she is in heaven, worshipping our God and surrounded by all the saints who have gone before, and even this-- this family gathering that brings me so much joy-- does not compare with Glory.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Where O Death is Now Thy Sting?

"Christ the Lord is risen today,"
Sons of men and angels say.
Raise your joys and triumphs high!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.


Vain the stone, the watch, the seal,
Christ has burst the gates of hell.
Death, in vain, forbids his rise,
Christ has opened paradise.


Lives again our glorious King!
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Once he died, our souls to save.
Where thy victory, O grave?


Soar we now where Christ has led
Foll'wing our exalted Head.
Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.


Hail, the Lord of earth and heaven!
Praise to Thee by both be given.
Thee we greet triumphant now!
Hail, the Resurrection, thou! Alleluia!


- Charles Wesley, 1739


My grandma went to be with the Lord yesterday after a long battle with lung cancer. She loved God and her family and her neighbors. She took great comfort in the Word of God and had peace in the last days of her life, knowing that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, and today she worships God in his heaven.