Death

Okay... I know the title of this post is not one that sounds good. But oh how indiscriminating. I have been away from my computer for about 22 hours. I spent the night last night at our hunting camp, and I arrived home and of course needed to check my email. I had several emails in my two email accounts. But out of all of the correspondence emails from friends and the many forwards, three were telling me of the death of someone. Now I did know about the condition of all of these people. One was an elderly woman who has cancer all over her body that was just found out last week; one was a middle-age woman with a brain tumor that was removed on Monday after finding out she had it the previous Wednesday; and one was a 28 year old young woman who was battling cancer. My heart goes out to each of these families. But.... all of these families say that their loved ones had a personal relationship with Jesus. Yes, there is much grief. But the Bible tells us that we are not like the world without hope. They have faith that their loved one was welcomed into Heaven by the Lord Himself. And... we know if we are right with God that we will see them again. Death comes unexpectedly. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, car wreck, drowning, electrocution, murder... I know someone who lost their life in each of these ways. We don't know the way or the time of our death, but we can know where we will be in that very moment that death occurs. What a great feeling to know to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What about you? Do you have this eternal assurance?