The Hope of the Resurrection

Yesterday morning, we received word that my cousin's wife had been killed in a car accident. On Friday night, she and her two sisters were together in a car that was hit head on by a drunk driver. Her youngest sister was also killed and the third sister is in critical conditional with internal injuries and head trauma.

My cousin Jon and his wife have one daughter, a beautiful little girl adopted from China in December 2004. His sister-in-law leaves behind a husband and 3 or 4 very young children. Please be in prayer for both of these families during this terrible time of loss!

I wrote the following poem this morning at church while thinking about this tragedy and reflecting on it being Easter Sunday morning. In light of what has happened, I am so grateful for Christ's resurrection and how it made possible that those who believe in Him may leave us physically through death but one day we will be reunited again ...

The Hope of the Resurrection
Easter Sunday, 2008

No time to say a gentle goodbye
Before life’s days were done;
Gone without warning, no reason why –
Just the reckless mistake of one.

Young lives cut short, to never resume,
Small children left alone.
Husbands to face grief and empty rooms,
Choices they’d never known.

What hope? Some would wonder, considering those.
(Such heartache and sorrow and pain.)
Yet comfort awaits for the one who knows
Of a place where they’ll live again.

The hope of the resurrection –
Christ’s work done on the cross.
A home awaits in Heaven,
On the other side of loss.

A glimmer of light in the darkness;
This life is not the end.
The hope of the resurrection –
That we’ll see them once again!

-shg 03.23.08