It can be a hard thing when our Christian parents leave this life. The seeming finality of that separation can be something that we find ourselves wrestling with at times. It can leave one with a feeling similar to that of being abandoned in a vulnerable moment. After all, if grace has allowed it, we've known the steady comfort of their presence for many years. From the moment we were born we began to know them and came to know them well. And for years, grace allowing, they knew us better than anyone on the planet.
Gone, just... gone. It's a word that we may try to put away out of our minds moving forward. It becomes a word that we can struggle with with varying intensity - sometimes overwhelmingly and seemingly out of the blue. It can come out of nowhere and come in a rush like a punch to your core, assaulting your emotions.
But from a higher, selfless perspective than one consumed with loss or emptiness, we might be forced to acknowledge equally with abundant gratitude... we were blessed.
When they leave, our comfort zone might shrink a little. An experienced volume of counsel and wisdom based on their knowledge of us and of life that we may have once been blessed to rely on for so many years, disappears. That possible sense of stability and security that their presence represented as a portion of our foundational staple may have just evaporated. It can leave a hole and become a wound that seems to take a long time to heal, one that in truth it never really goes away. But then, thinking about it, we might never really want it to because that might mean forgetting what they meant to us. So along with all of the memories, we might hold onto some of the pain and the vacuum of emptiness created by the void representing that place they once occupied...
In my case it was first one, then years later per grace, the other. But dwelling on that feeling of loss and all that may come negatively with it following their departure from our presence, neglects some very important facts.There are things that we need to remember with equal heart and spirit and keep continually in perspective to offset and even overwhelm those moments that would negatively take our breath away. In other words, to keep our perspective in step with the reality of Father God's...
However much we were sure for so many years that they were ours - OUR mom, OUR dad, they never really were "ours". They belonged to Father God the whole time and in His loving grace and kindness, for a moment in His time, He share them with us. He brought us together for a time to be a blessing to one another as He worked to raise us up and prepare us for life with Him.They like we, are HIS babies and following Christ they're destined to live forever in the grace of His presence. That was always His plan from the beginning. We're all here for a moment, but He never intended to leave us here. Our destination according to His plan was and is a much more perfect and pleasant life beyond this life.
As parents ourselves now, if we've been blessed with children, He's given us both a privilege and a responsibility to prepare others of HIS kids for that life with Him as He leads us and we submit. What we teach them actively or just by our own example even in the rough moments of our lives, could be the key to their being able to meet us there in that same place one day. What they see in us and draw from our perspective, along with what we make the effort to teach them outwardly, could be the very thing that sets them on the path to arriving with us to be a part of Christ's forever family if and when their time comes. If mom and/or dad have departed, we too will join them when the Lord determines that it's time. That day will surely come for our children and their children also if the Lord tarries. Thinking about that for a moment should have some weight in our thoughts about the ministry and responsibility we've been given along with the children and grandchildren He's gracefully allowed us to share with Him.
In the craziness of this failing world, we may be the only ones that have the depth of love and concern for those precious children to make meaningful and eternally life saving investment in them - maybe just like our own mom and dad may have done for us. So what we teach them now through our having a right perspective and by what we say, not only with our mouths, but by the example we live while we can here is important. We need to do our best to both get and keep Father Gods perspective, not only for our selves but those watching us as well. As precious as they are to Him, I can't imagine that we won't give an answer for how we trained them to respond to Him. The frailty of temporary humanity will one day give way to the clarity of Father God's eternal plan for all of us.
But getting back to our parents. Whatever our relationship with our parent or parents who've graduated from this life was like, we were blessed to learn some things. We've learned something about what to do and what not to do from watching and hearing them. We may have to look through some weeds to find those things sometimes as we consider what they've shown us in their lifetime, but from a higher perspective than this world might share, I assure you it's there. Through everything we experience in this life, there's something of value we can harvest, even from human failure. We weren't created to go through this life in a meaningless fashion, but are expected learn about our God and how to live in His presence.
This life is something like a spiritual incubator. We were brought here to grow and mature for a time, but we were never intended to stay. The moment that we're allowed to move on from here is when real life, the life our Father intended for us all along, begins. So our sadness, our feeling of loss when our parents are allowed to leave this life is in stark contrast to the beginning of their joy at being allowed to truly live. The returning of our parents and indeed any who belong to Christ, is a true homecoming to the Father that created us. In a larger perspective - Father God's perspective, it should actually be cause for our great joy on their behalf - because of how much we love them. In His perspective, our selfless hearts mirroring Christ's, should also be filled with overwhelming gratitude, at least equal to any grief, for His having shared them with us for a time - because we've been blessed.
This life is only a temporary moment, one page in an eternal, unending personal story that Father God's allowing us to co-write with Him. He intends it to be a love story, but He gives us the literary freedom to determine how it plays out. Whether it ends in eternal, relational bliss with Him... or the loneliness of tragic, forever brokenness is up to us. Either way, we've been blessed just to be allowed to write it.
Gone, just... gone. It's a word that we may try to put away out of our minds moving forward. It becomes a word that we can struggle with with varying intensity - sometimes overwhelmingly and seemingly out of the blue. It can come out of nowhere and come in a rush like a punch to your core, assaulting your emotions.
But from a higher, selfless perspective than one consumed with loss or emptiness, we might be forced to acknowledge equally with abundant gratitude... we were blessed.
When they leave, our comfort zone might shrink a little. An experienced volume of counsel and wisdom based on their knowledge of us and of life that we may have once been blessed to rely on for so many years, disappears. That possible sense of stability and security that their presence represented as a portion of our foundational staple may have just evaporated. It can leave a hole and become a wound that seems to take a long time to heal, one that in truth it never really goes away. But then, thinking about it, we might never really want it to because that might mean forgetting what they meant to us. So along with all of the memories, we might hold onto some of the pain and the vacuum of emptiness created by the void representing that place they once occupied...
In my case it was first one, then years later per grace, the other. But dwelling on that feeling of loss and all that may come negatively with it following their departure from our presence, neglects some very important facts.There are things that we need to remember with equal heart and spirit and keep continually in perspective to offset and even overwhelm those moments that would negatively take our breath away. In other words, to keep our perspective in step with the reality of Father God's...
However much we were sure for so many years that they were ours - OUR mom, OUR dad, they never really were "ours". They belonged to Father God the whole time and in His loving grace and kindness, for a moment in His time, He share them with us. He brought us together for a time to be a blessing to one another as He worked to raise us up and prepare us for life with Him.They like we, are HIS babies and following Christ they're destined to live forever in the grace of His presence. That was always His plan from the beginning. We're all here for a moment, but He never intended to leave us here. Our destination according to His plan was and is a much more perfect and pleasant life beyond this life.
As parents ourselves now, if we've been blessed with children, He's given us both a privilege and a responsibility to prepare others of HIS kids for that life with Him as He leads us and we submit. What we teach them actively or just by our own example even in the rough moments of our lives, could be the key to their being able to meet us there in that same place one day. What they see in us and draw from our perspective, along with what we make the effort to teach them outwardly, could be the very thing that sets them on the path to arriving with us to be a part of Christ's forever family if and when their time comes. If mom and/or dad have departed, we too will join them when the Lord determines that it's time. That day will surely come for our children and their children also if the Lord tarries. Thinking about that for a moment should have some weight in our thoughts about the ministry and responsibility we've been given along with the children and grandchildren He's gracefully allowed us to share with Him.
In the craziness of this failing world, we may be the only ones that have the depth of love and concern for those precious children to make meaningful and eternally life saving investment in them - maybe just like our own mom and dad may have done for us. So what we teach them now through our having a right perspective and by what we say, not only with our mouths, but by the example we live while we can here is important. We need to do our best to both get and keep Father Gods perspective, not only for our selves but those watching us as well. As precious as they are to Him, I can't imagine that we won't give an answer for how we trained them to respond to Him. The frailty of temporary humanity will one day give way to the clarity of Father God's eternal plan for all of us.
But getting back to our parents. Whatever our relationship with our parent or parents who've graduated from this life was like, we were blessed to learn some things. We've learned something about what to do and what not to do from watching and hearing them. We may have to look through some weeds to find those things sometimes as we consider what they've shown us in their lifetime, but from a higher perspective than this world might share, I assure you it's there. Through everything we experience in this life, there's something of value we can harvest, even from human failure. We weren't created to go through this life in a meaningless fashion, but are expected learn about our God and how to live in His presence.
This life is something like a spiritual incubator. We were brought here to grow and mature for a time, but we were never intended to stay. The moment that we're allowed to move on from here is when real life, the life our Father intended for us all along, begins. So our sadness, our feeling of loss when our parents are allowed to leave this life is in stark contrast to the beginning of their joy at being allowed to truly live. The returning of our parents and indeed any who belong to Christ, is a true homecoming to the Father that created us. In a larger perspective - Father God's perspective, it should actually be cause for our great joy on their behalf - because of how much we love them. In His perspective, our selfless hearts mirroring Christ's, should also be filled with overwhelming gratitude, at least equal to any grief, for His having shared them with us for a time - because we've been blessed.
This life is only a temporary moment, one page in an eternal, unending personal story that Father God's allowing us to co-write with Him. He intends it to be a love story, but He gives us the literary freedom to determine how it plays out. Whether it ends in eternal, relational bliss with Him... or the loneliness of tragic, forever brokenness is up to us. Either way, we've been blessed just to be allowed to write it.
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