Hope

In Remembrance

Somewhere in time, January 1, 2012 a young person died, killed in a car accident.  I was at home on January 2^nd and I got a text from a friend asking me if I knew this young man. I did, I responded that he was formally one of my students.  The responding text told me he had been killed in a car accident the day before. 

This is a tragedy no matter how you look at it.  My prayers go out to the family and friends of this young man. 

I remember a young man with an engaging smile and a fun sense of humor.  When I asked my students to take a Bible story and present its lesson in a different way, he gave me a Dr. Seuss type story, complete with Seuss characters and a rhyming story.   What a fun thing to grade. 

I learned that in the years after my class he grew to be a young man that loved his Lord and loved others.  He left a good legacy. 

Why would God allow something so tragic to happen to someone with such a bright future?  I can’t answer that.  I know that God is in control, but I also know we live in a broken world were bad things happen.  There is no getting around that. 

I was thinking there is a unique situation with Christians.  We do feel sorrow and we do feel pain, but in the midst of that, we can still have hope.  The Bible tells us not to grieve as those who have no hope.  We have hope because this earth is not the end.  This life is not all there is.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  That is hope.

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”

When I was twelve years old my Grandmother died.  She had heart problems and had a debilitating stroke a few years before.  When I was nine years old, she told me about her close encounter with heaven.  She had been in her twenties and she had her first stroke and it almost took her life.  In fact, it had, they were trying to resuscitate.  She said she felt the lightness as her spirit prepared to leave the earth.  She saw the light and heard the most beautiful music, then the heaviness hit.  She heard my grandfather pleading with God to let her live.  The lightness left and her soul returned to her body.  She lived for another thirty years.

Titus 1:2 (NIV) “a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,”

Going to a place with light and beautiful music sounded more fun than life here on earth.    I am not sure why some are allowed to survive and others taken, but I know that whatever happens to his Children, God is control and His love is unfathomable.

Philippians 3:20 (NIV) “But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Life is fragile and no one is guaranteed tomorrow.  What does matter is that while hear on earth you accept Jesus as Christ.  Then someday when you die, you will get to go home. That sounds good.