Eternity - Home

This summer I lost a friend at church.  She was an older lady who was in a wheelchair from the time I met her.  She had been afflicted by a stroke which imprisoned her in that wheelchair.  Through her disability she met a member from our church.  Consequently, that prison of a wheelchair wheeled her to the cross, and to her Redeemer.  She was cheerful and faithful in encountering me.  We became friends.  Before she met Jesus she was an artist, using bits of paper to create beauty.  As a result of her stroke she could no longer make the pictures, but she created beauty by combining her pictures from the past with Scripture.  Her artwork became complete as she now knew Jesus, the ultimate Artist.

I am sad to see her place empty at church.  It is a selfish sad, however.  At her funeral I wept, but then God reminded me to see the whole picture.  She has shed the wheelchair, and is kneeling in awe before her Redeemer.  How joyous!  She stepped out of a body broken by cancer and a stroke to ultimate healing. How marvelous!  She passed from a dim, dingy world into brilliant, vibrant beauty.  How amazing!  My weeping turned to joy as I imagined her ecstasy in the presence of Jesus. I could not help rejoicing at that funeral.  She was in joyous, marvelous, amazing eternity. She is face to face with Jesus.  She is home!