Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. - Psalm 116:15 (ESV)
"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"" - John 11:25-26 (NIV)
"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NIV)
“Our cousin said that we can access the camera at the funeral
and see it there,” suggested my brother. He called from thousands of miles away
to share the news that our uncle, my mother’s first cousin, had passed away
from pancreatic cancer. I remembered just talking with him about this disease
few days earlier and I had told my brother that this kind of cancer was hard to
cure. Most of the time, people diagnosed could die within a short amount of
time.
He was the youngest cousin, his age equivalent to some of my
older brothers. That instead of my brothers considering him as “an uncle” felt
like he was more a brother and a friend to them. My other brother who grew up
with him was devastated to hear the news.
I tried accessing the camera from the wake. I saw blurry
images yet was able to identify some of familiar faces like a cousin and an
aunt. I saw just a glimpse of his casket. Adorned with beautiful white flowers
on the bottom. His huge picture with a big smile welcomed everyone paying
respect. I couldn’t see his face but appeared like he was just sleeping. As the
rest of his family seemed to be talking, some weeping, most with puffy eyebags
perhaps from combination of lack of sleep and weeping. I knew some of his
siblings must come from other parts of this world.
“I can’t believe it,” my brother added.
“Kuya Willy is gone…” he ended as he remained silent.
As I returned the phone to its charging receiver, I knew…
How often people forget the truth. Death is not the end of
this life. It’s just the beginning of a life that doesn’t end. But Jesus warns…Where
do we choose to go? To the fiery end or His Kingdom? And to go to His mansion
means we must believe in what Jesus had done. For there’s no other way. And
that’s the painful truth…
That all of us must die here now….In order to live…
That such loss is not a loss if we surrender our lives to
Jesus…
Every time I hear this song, "Broken Halelujah" by The Afters, I get encouraged no matter what's going on around me. The story behind this song:
“There were times,” Havens recalls, “when we were in tears writing that song. We opened the book of Job and saw a man who experienced more losses than we could ever fathom. In the midst of all that, he shaved his head and got rid of his clothes so that he had nothing left, and yet he still worshiped God. ‘Broken Hallelujah’ came out of that sense that when we’re broken, the only thing we have is our worship.”
May this song minister to you...
