In Memory of losing my Grandmother - the reason for my blue eyes and half my namesake.
Written by my brother Joseph Carlson
"In the midst of my tears and prayers today I have been asking Jesus what
the hope we lay claim to in faith looks like in the midst of such stark
reality, when stripped of all ideology and conceptualization. What does
that hope look like when it is forcibly snatched from its ethereal
realm and made to look death full in the face? What does it speak into
the silence that is death?
At this point I have more questions than I do insights or answers. This is what I do know and what I must believe: that Death has lost it's sting because of the work of Christ on the Cross. It is He who rules over death and over all. This does nothing to diminish the pain and suffering of death as we now know it here and now, for it is right and fitting to feel a loss such as this in our very core. And yet, we believe and take joy in that we believe that Life, rather than Death, is the final word that Love speaks. For all it's seeming finality, Life is what I believe that we will share with Grandma again.
I know nothing of Heaven. I can know nothing of heaven for it lies beyond the realm of fact. It exists fully in the realm of faith and love. I have faith and I know love. I know that the bible paints an image in Psalms and Revelation of New Creation. I've come to love that it describes such a time and place as a Garden City, wherein there are no more tears for death or pain. It is some consolation to believe that my Grandma will get to garden once again, to grow the roses that she loved so much in a place where she won't have to coax bud and blossom out from under rain and cloudy skies.
I believe that above all else God is "for us", that he is a God who suffers along side of us and who sends his Spirit to learn the groans of our mourning and to groan them on the floor beside us. God may not explain our suffering, but he suffers with us."
At this point I have more questions than I do insights or answers. This is what I do know and what I must believe: that Death has lost it's sting because of the work of Christ on the Cross. It is He who rules over death and over all. This does nothing to diminish the pain and suffering of death as we now know it here and now, for it is right and fitting to feel a loss such as this in our very core. And yet, we believe and take joy in that we believe that Life, rather than Death, is the final word that Love speaks. For all it's seeming finality, Life is what I believe that we will share with Grandma again.
I know nothing of Heaven. I can know nothing of heaven for it lies beyond the realm of fact. It exists fully in the realm of faith and love. I have faith and I know love. I know that the bible paints an image in Psalms and Revelation of New Creation. I've come to love that it describes such a time and place as a Garden City, wherein there are no more tears for death or pain. It is some consolation to believe that my Grandma will get to garden once again, to grow the roses that she loved so much in a place where she won't have to coax bud and blossom out from under rain and cloudy skies.
I believe that above all else God is "for us", that he is a God who suffers along side of us and who sends his Spirit to learn the groans of our mourning and to groan them on the floor beside us. God may not explain our suffering, but he suffers with us."
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