P.D. Weekly Email

Hello Great Family,

Recently, I became a grandpa. The joy of watching your child excelling in her now role of "mother" is unmatched not to mention the awesome, amazing, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, inspiring, magnificent, majestic, miraculous, spectacular, stunning, sublime, wonderful, wondrous child she (and her husband) produced. However, this was not my only experience as a father in the past few years. I also had to say goodbye to a different daughter as she and her husband moved to Dubai. That is the wild roller-coaster called life. Elation followed by sorrow. Joy mingling with tears.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 affirms there is "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance". The Bible makes it clear that in this life, we will face all the emotions of love and loss. We are also told in Proverbs 14:13, "Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief". James 4:9 calls for serious reflection, "Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness". But God reminds us in Jeremiah 31:13, "I will turn their mourning into laughter and their sadness into joy; I will comfort them". Again in Proverbs 30:11, "You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy".

This Saturday will be a day of stark contrasts. Several will gather for a memorial service to remember a man who was loved and had great impact on many lives. While there will be celebration of a life lived for God, there will also be the sorrow of loss for a wife, three sons and their families, and many dear friends. There will be joy mixed with grief. But, then there is a wedding later that day. I expect great delight and bliss mixed with laughter and dancing. Both will happen on the same day and that's OK. That's the life we have been given. A mixture of all the good and the difficult for everyone to experience. That's why God also commands us in Romans 12:15, "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn". We need to do this, even when it all happens in the same 24 hour day.

God gives us this life here and now with the promise of a future life lived much differently. We are promised in Revelation 21:4, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” So thank God for this life and thank Him for our future hope. In Christ, we have it all...and it only gets better!

God Bless,
P.D. (Psalm 139)