Mourning

I bought a box of sympathy cards today.

That doesn't sound unusual. I'm always buying cards, and this box joins probably five other boxes of cards in my cabinet. Get well cards. Cards for encouragement. Thank you cards. Thinking of you cards. I like to have cards on hand because I often feel moved to send one, and in order to get that done, I have to be able to grab and send -- not go look for one at a store. So I keep cards around. But never sympathy cards before.

Every time I would pick one up at the card store, I would put it back. I didn't want to need them, so I didn't want to buy them.

Last week the mother of a church member died. I sat down at my desk to send a card, and I didn't have any. I need to keep sympathy cards on hand, too, so I gave in and bought some today.

Death isn't something we want to think about. Someone last week asked when the baby-boomers were going to day. The answer was, "Never. They expect to live forever."

And here's the amazing thing. We will. We will live forever. We will live forever in the presence of God.

We should mourn at death. We mourn the loss the loved one leaves, but we also, and I think rightly so, mourn that the person we love didn't have more time in this physical life. We were created to know that life here, in this world, is precious. We were created to yearn for life, and then to celebrate when we arrive in the presence of God beyond this place. There is glory here. It is cracked and distorted by sin, but God is here, and so is life lived in his presence.

That's why songs centered around the idea that "there is nothing here for me" bother me. There most certainly is something here. That's why the idea that "God plucked another angel for his garden" bothers me. I think God mourns our passing from this life as well. He welcomes us home, but we have been sent here for a mission, and part of that mission is to find the joy and glory of this life.

So, I don't like to buy sympathy cards. I don't want to have to share in mourning. But I will -- buy the cards and share in the mourning. I think it's the way we are made.