“Mommy, can we take flowers to Grandma Debbie’s grave sometime?”
Being just a week away from May 23, the timing was providential, so I gave my consent and tucked away a mental note to find a floral shop near the cemetery.
We talk a lot about eternal matters. My children have seen death hit close to home this year, and they ask questions all the time about heaven and how to get there. So my 5-year-old’s question was not entirely out of the blue.
A week later—and exactly 14 years after Mom left her earthly body to see her Savior face to face—we packed the children in Luis’ truck and made our way to the cemetery, with a quick stop at the floral shop.
My 5-year-old asks what Grandma Debbie’s tombstone says, so I read to her, “Deborah R. Anderson. July 17, 1965, May 23, 2009. Wife, Mother, Sister, Daughter. Awaiting the Rapture.”
“Mommy, why is there a cross on Grandma Debbie’s stone?” This one from my 3-year-old. We’ve talked a lot about Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross lately too, so we spend time reiterating what the cross represents. I talk specifically about its being empty—there are other tombstones which are imprinted with crosses that bear the image of Christ still hanging. My turn for a question: “Why is the cross empty? Did Jesus stay dead on the cross?”
My daughter chimes in with appropriate excitement, “No! He rose again on the third day so that we can go to Heaven too.”
Grandma Debbie is “Awaiting the Rapture” because she believed on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ—that He died to pay the price for her sin and that He conquered death so that she could spend eternity with God.
My son continues to ask questions about where her body is and how they got it underneath the stone. So we shift our conversation to what happens to our bodies after we die. “Her body is in the ground, but is Grandma Debbie in the ground?” Big sister answers with excitement again, “No! She’s in Heaven with Jesus.” Awaiting the Rapture when we will all be joined together to meet our Savior and be with our Father.
I still can’t tell you why God in His providence decided that Mom would die young, but I can tell you that her death has born eternal fruit in my life. And it continues to bear fruit in the lives of her grandchildren. So we, this side of Heaven, also await the rapture, with hopeful anticipation, prayerfully discipling the next generation so that they too may come to "know whom they have believed," as Mom did.
Yorumlar