At a wedding I shot recently, the family of the groom created a slideshow of pictures to this song. The groom's dad was killed in 2000, and today was his wedding day, and his dad wasn't there. Needless to say, it was an emotional five minutes or so.
Death isn't easy to deal with. This morning, I heard of a little boy who was killed when a soccer goal fell on top of him. Two of my friends have recently miscarried. Pete's older brother died shortly after birth. Yesterday, my mother-in-law told me about her friend's brother's unexpected death. My mom told me about a woman whose terminal cancer pushed her daughter's wedding from July to this last Friday. The family was planning a funeral the next week.
I don't like thinking about the possibility of loss like that. Every time Pete leaves the house, I nearly hold my breath until he's with me again. Now I have a little one inside me, and life seems even more fragile, for me and for the baby.
I know believers have more than the pain of the loss here. I don't have an answer or a formula for comfort. I don't know if anyone does. I guess how we deal with death depends on where we put our hope--or if we even have hope.
Is hope just for someday, though, for reunion with our loved ones when we finally reach heaven's glory? Our hope isn't just in death. I know it. Paul calls it a "living hope." I saw that living hope in the tears on the faces of the loved ones who were watching that slideshow a few weeks ago.
I don't think we can ever fill the holes left in our hearts when someone we love is taken from us. I don't think we're meant to. That's why we hope that there is more. That HE is more. That a sovereign God is somehow working out a happy ending for us. That He is with us in our pain. That He understands where we are, here, now.
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