Hello, Goodbye

I was a little fuzzy when I got the call from my wife that grandchild number six had just made his entrance into the world, welcomed with tears of joy, grins from ear to ear and the sending out of glad tidings.

Much earlier in the day, I got a simple but profoundly sad text from my brother that his youngest child, my niece, had just left this world, sent on her way with tears of anguish, downcast faces and the sending out of sad tidings.

Rejoicing in Texas, mourning in Missouri.  From mountain top shouts to valley low laments.  What does one do with those extremes?  The simple answer? "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" (Rom 12:15).  Simple?  Yes.  Easy?  No.

It is never easy to enter a house of mourning, to share in their sorrow.  And to enter a house rejoicing and share in the jubilation when you are feeling the weight of another's sorrow is also a challenge. Saying hello and saying goodbye in one breath is breath-taking.

But this is life.  Joy and sorrow, gain and loss, life and death.  While we may find it difficult to navigate at times, it is the world in which we live - for now.  The good news is that this world is a passing through, a journey, which one day will be forever behind us.  It's sorrows never to be repeated and it's joy forever to be eclipsed.  And while our joy will turn to mourning time and again in this world while we are passing through, mourning will pass away replaced by joy alone in Heaven.

In my guided reading plan this morning, the first passage I read was this: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matt).  So, I will rejoice with my wife and say hello to a new grandson and I will mourn with my brother as we say goodbye to his daughter.  In all of life I will turn to the Lord whether rejoicing in gratitude or lamenting in sorrow.  Jus' Say'n.