The Final Graduation

Have you recently experienced the death of someone special?
May these words speak to your heart
as you cope with your new realities.
 
When someone graduates, we usually celebrate.
We throw a party. We congratulate them.
We give them gifts.
 
But when someone close to us graduates to Heaven, we are sad.
We realize they won’t be coming back for Christmas break.
They won’t stop in for a weekend.
​We can’t call or message them.
Zoom won’t reach to where they’ve gone.
 
And so we’re sad. Even Jesus understood that emotion.
He cried – not for the dead, but for the living.
He knew how much Martha and Mary missed their brother,
particularly in an era when women’s economic options
were severely limited. Jesus wept, even though He knew
how soon He was going to change the situation.
 
We doubt seriously that He’s going to duplicate that action
for your loved one this afternoon. Yet for those who believed
in the God of the Bible, we have been told by Jesus Himself
that a graduation to Heaven is indeed a promotion
to a much better state of being. They don’t hurt any more.
They aren’t restricted by time and space, as we know them.
And they get to see God when they talk to Him.
 
And so we thank the Lord for having let them be a part of our lives
for so long. We thank Him for all the great memories we shared
while they were among us. We thank Him for all the times
we were able to serve Him together.
 
Many of our graduating friends and family were pillars
of both church and community.
They will be greatly missed for a long time.
​It will be strange to plan regular events and not have their input.
We’ve always just depended on them to be there helping out.
They believed. They also served.
Those are some good memories for you to hang onto.
 
May the Lord give you strength, wisdom, and peace
as you recall those remembrances
and pass them along to your kids.
They indeed have a Godly heritage.