Not without hope

Again, we feel the loss of being far away from family. Except this time we are not celebrating the birth of a baby, but mourning the death of a wonderful man.

Papa Bill and Granny Bonnie with Brandon

The man on the left in this picture is Brandon's grandfather, affectionately known as Papa Bill. Last year he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After a tough battle with this awful disease, he died Saturday in his home in Bertha, Alabama, surrounded by his wife and children. Though we know he is free of the pain of cancer now, we are saddened knowing he won't be there when we get back.

Our feelings sometimes serve as clues to reality. In a world filled with car accidents, natural disasters, war, and disease, we often shake our heads over seeing life ended abruptly . Even for Papa Bill, who lived 84 full years and was hurting so much at the end, no one was ready for him to die. We still respond to death with an attitude of, "This is not how this should be." We call it unfair; and in a way, it is. Our bodies weren't always in a process of decay. Our world wasn't always working against us.

This is exactly what we find in the Genesis account of creation.  God created the world as it should be: humans working together in creation with uninterrupted communion with God.  However, man was unsatisfied with this perfect setup and . Paul tells us in Romans 5 that "sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned."

It would seem hopeless if he stopped there. But praise God, only 3 verses later, Paul tells us that "the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many."

We will all die a physical death, but we don't have to die spiritually. We can have eternal life through Christ. Jesus left a perfect place to live in a fallen world and die for sinful people, so that we can live eternally with Him. With that hope we can stand firm in the midst of suffering on this earth, all the while gazing hopefully to the New Heavens and New Earth promised in Revelation where "death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore...."