Death, where is your sting?

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well. 

--Henry Scott Holland

On Thursday afternoon I went to a funeral of a man that was one of my charge nurses during my time at CMC.  This was my first funeral since the funeral of Gideon.  I was nervous to go it alone and even while making the hour plus drive to Sand Springs, I was contemplating turning around.  I wasn't sure how I would hold up.  But I was reminded that this funeral wasn't about me.  It was about Rick.  It was about his family.  None of us enjoy going to funerals, especially those who have endured their own personal loss of someone very close.  It stirs up memories and feelings.  That loss comes back like an old wound that has been ripped open and is now fresh with pain.  So I was going to go.  I was going to walk in and I was going to be a demonstration of a life their father had touched.  The ceremony was simple.  People stood up and spoke of memories and laughter.  Comfort was given to his two children and their children.  Words were shared among the group.  This poem was read by his ex-wife and thankfully, it was read during the first ten minutes.  It stuck with me through the entire funeral and gave me peace.

To the believer, death is a mere moment of separation.  Though these past two years without Gideon may seem like an eternity and to know that I may be blessed enough to endure 70 more without those bouncing blue eyes is painstaking, it is all but a blink of time in the grand scheme of things.  Too soon, I will be called up to Heaven to celebrate Jesus, to worship God along side our son.  This Easter weekend I am reminded of God's promise as we all should be.  Death has no power over the believer and Hell, no victory.  In the reading of the promise of Jesus' birth, in his death, burial and resurrection, my heart cannot help but be overfilled.  Overfilled with an immense love that He is my Savior, an immense sorrow that because of my sin, He had to die and not just die but die a brutal death that man cannot even fathom and an immense awe that He rose--that he conquered death and Hell could not hold Him down.  And through this, not only will I now be able to see my son again in perfect healing because I am saved but I will also get to bow down and worship the one true God.  I cry out to you, Lord.  I glorify you, Lord.  I thank you, Lord, that this is a mere interval and that my son is merely in another room for a short time.  I love you, Lord.