I'm in shock. I can't believe it.
Two days ago a wrote a blog about the losses we face in life. How nothing and no one is permanent and if we live long enough, everyone we love will die. I shared that I wanted to run away from reality and numb myself from pain; that I don't want my child to face any more loss, even though loss is unavoidable and my job is to prepare him not shield him.
And then death struck again.
A beloved mentor and grandfather-figure, gone. A heart condition that doctors had no answers for and felt so eerily similar to Greg's took the life of a beloved father, husband, grandfather, speaker, teacher, friend and mentor.
Death is all sting in this life. It is finality and pain; trauma and loss. It is someone we love missing and unreachable. It is things left unsaid and no more chances.
I'm reminding myself of truth - truth that does not take away the pain and sting but helps me to not give way to despair:
"Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:16
"Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." Psalm 116:15
"For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." Psalm 84:10
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Rev. 21:3-4
“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory