Homesick

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Image: bulldogza / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
"But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."  Phil. 3:20-21

I've always struggled with open caskets at funerals.  I'm not sure why.  They say it is important to view the body in order to have closure.  The first funeral I remember going to, I was shaken because for the first time I realized the human body is just a shell.  The body without the spirit is dead.  The person I knew and loved was no longer there.  I did not want to remember them as a lifeless form.  I wanted to remember them as a smiling, living, and breathing human soul.

When I was in high school, there were two sweet dear older ladies that I visited weekly.  Beulah taught me how to tat and spent hours telling me about growing up back in the early 1900's.  I was fascinated by her stories.  Ruth liked for me to come down and watch basketball and The Cosby Show with her.  She had a fat little dog that she fed chocolate covered cherries, and she would sit and listen to me talk.  She thought everything I told her was wonderful.  These two sweet ladies both passed away my junior year.  I refused to go to either one of their funerals.  My family worried about me, but I was fine.  I just wanted my last memory of them to be sitting together with them in their living rooms.  I wanted to remember Ruth plunking her dog, Sugar, on the floor, straightening his little legs under his rotund body, and pulling him to the door on his leash.  I wanted to remember Beulah smiling at me over the top of the doily she was tatting as she talked about the latest quilt they were quilting down at The Gold Dust Hotel.  I didn't want to remember a lifeless body in a casket.

On our wedding day Les and I had the privilege of having seven of our grandparents present.  We now have only one living grandma.  I've watched their bodies grow old.  It is difficult to observe the toll that sickness and age takes on a body.  The human body is just a temporary home.  I'm so grateful that God has a new body awaiting me.   Although the human body is indeed a marvel, it is perishable.  My new body will be eternal.  It will be like Christ's glorious body.  In heaven I will no longer have to say goodbye to those I love.  There will be no more empty shells to bury in the ground.  I'm looking forward to that day.

Guess I'm feeling a little homesick, and I'm looking forward to the day when there will be No More Night.

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