Where Oh Death is Your Sting?

This past fall I lost my Pap-pa. He passed away quietly into the night. No pain, no agony, just transferred from this world to the next during his sleep. What an incredible way to go! He was the first person really close to me that I have lost. The words that I have repeated over and over in explaining his death, "it just doesn't make sense", have questioned me. He was 82 years old. It should make sense. Everyone dies. Everyone knows that their time will end. Why does it not make sense when it happens? It is unnatural. One day they are here living among us, and the next they are gone. Their body remains for a few days until we return it to the ground, but even that seems so unnatural. We did not see this body created from the ground. Why are we laying it into the cold ground, when yesterday they were living beside me. It is haunting. It is beyond comprehension.

His death has made me so much more inquisitive about Heaven. Before then, I did not really care to learn about Heaven, because that meant death must come first. I believe that I felt that I could not think about Heaven without processing death. Now, I have reason to learn about Heaven. I now personally know someone who is there. It makes learning about Heaven like learning about where a friend has gone on a journey. If my friend moves to Europe, I would want to learn about it and try to understand where they are and what they are experiencing. I have felt the same way about Pap-pa and Heaven. It has changed my faith!

I now realize so much more. I know it is only the tiny tip of the iceberg. I know see that God is restoring us back to what we originally were created to be. We should and do hunger for Heaven, even though we do not know that is what we are hungering for. "The body that is sown is perishable (his life could no longer remain), it is raised IMPERISHABLE (never again to cease-for eternity); it is sown in dishonor (buried in the ground), it is raised in GLORY (I cannot imagine what this will be like! Raised as God intended us to be in the beginning.); it is sown in weakness (His body was becoming weak and aged effected by sin and death.), it is raised in POWER (just as God intended it to be in the beginning-no fear of sin or death); it is sown a natural body (perishable and with limits), it is raised a SPIRITUAL BODY (Who knows what power we will have as a spiritual body! A body such as Christ had after the resurrection.)." 1 Corinth 15:42-44

I understand that death does not seem natural. It doesn't make sense. It was never intended to be the end. It was not the plan. "Oh death where is your sting?" We do feel it now, but only for a time. This sting is not the end. It is only a pain towards the beginning. A pain that will cease.