Sorrow and joy

This has been rather a sad week for me in the fact that two old dear friends from Congregation Beth Simcha went home to be with the Lord within the space of about a week or so....first was Betty Cochran...if there was a dear sweet lady it was her. She would come with her husband Chris, even to the point where arthritis had confined her to a wheelchair and rendered her hands to almost uselessness....she could have used that as an excuse not to come to service, but she didn't. I pray that that serves as an example to those of us who have full use of our body-if she could come to worship the Lord with a body that had been ravaged by something like arthritis, who are we to say that we cannot come to worship because of whatever small thing that we have.

And then Friday, Bryan Bain went home at 3:00 in the afternoon...I remember Bryan as one of the first people to help and be back of the sanctuary to help pray for others. He leaves a loving and wonderful wife and seven small kids who I pray will remember their father as a man of God and that they will grow up to be just like him....

And if I were just to focus on the pain of their departure, it would be a sad occassion, but there is something that I know, that they both knew Jesus as their Savior and that in reality they are free from the bonds of arthritis, leukemia and other diseases, that they have a new body that are free from the contaminations of our earthly existance and that they are in the hands of the loving Savior who tells us in John 10:29 "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of MyFather's hand." Just think about that, that they will be with the Father and none will be able to take them away from Him...that they will be rejoicing and being with others such as Richard Haynes, Felix Castillo and others who know Jesus as Savior...with homes prepared for them, with new bodies, eternal citizenship in Heaven.....that is the joy we all should have....knowing that they have passed into a far better place!

So as we wait to join them...I think that this song by DeGarmo & Key should let us know what's on the other side.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrLhgBPxSg