Recently, a friend of mine – a lady who, along with her husband, had a very pastoral role in the life of myself & my wife – passed away. She has a great story, one which included a tragic accident of falling down her home stairs in 2001, on the brink of death. In the end, she was left paralyzed, continuing on for another 13 years.
Her story is captured in the book, Falling Into His Grace.
As I mentioned earlier this week, my grandfather passed away last Saturday. The funeral was yesterday (22 Sept 2011) and, though I wasn’t able to be there in person, I was able to send over a short eulogy of remembrance. I will miss this gentle and kind man.
Interestingly, a couple of months ago, as I was re-reading through John Eldredge’s book, The Journey of Desire (now simply called Desire), I was struck by his words around the subject of grieving found near the end of the book. They reached wider than simply grieving the death of a loved one, though he had recently experienced such. And so I share those thoughts below. Continue reading
This past Saturday, my grandfather passed away. It was good, as he had both lung and brain cancer, and following the treatment for the brain tumours, his health headed downhill fast. The suffering has ended, praise God!
You know, when we experience death, not ourselves personally, but experiencing such via loved ones who pass away, I think it provides an opportunity to survey life as a whole. Nothing else can bring us to ponder certain things except through the eyes of death.
It is a horrible reality, is it not? Death is the furthest from the will of God! And I am glad that through the resurrection of Christ, death has lost its sting! But, in this age, we still must embrace it. Continue reading
The Prodigal Thought 