Good-bye Isn't Forever

To LOVE much is to hurt much

as I experienced it this weekend at two funerals.

The sadness was so great

because the LOVE was so great.

Two mothers. Two wives.

Two women

of

Two different families.

Yet at this moment the same.

One 63 & one 88 years old.

We all know saying good-bye is part of life,

yet it is so surreal when it happens

as we all have had to say

Good-bye

to someone and someones

that we LOVE so greatly.

Our days are numbered

as

"YOU have decided the length of our lives.

YOU know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer" (Job 14:5)

just as

"the very hairs on your head are all numbered" (Luke 12:7).

GOD knows it all

because

HE knows each one of us so intimately,

LOVING us beyond measure

that

HE has bigger & better plans

beyond this life that we see & experience today.

Bigger & better than our best day here on earth.

Oh to grieve is the deepest sorrow of life,

because LOVE hurts when saying good-bye.

Yet our earthly good-byes are not forever.

"Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid].

Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away,

yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day.

 For our momentary, light distress [this passing trouble]

is producing for us an eternal weight of glory [a fullness] beyond all

measure [surpassing all comparisons, a transcendent splendor and an endless blessedness]!

 So we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are visible are temporal [just brief and fleeting],

but the things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

HIS LOVE never ever ever dies~

"HE will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever" (Revelation 21:4)

So for now

Good-bye isn't forever,

but as we wait

we THANK YOU GOD

for turning

"GRAVES INTO GARDENS" (listen to the song below)