Strength for Today

April 25, 2010 marks the one-year anniversary of my father’s departure for Heaven. In his memory I offer you this wonderful illustration of death. (The composer is uncertain ~ perhaps Victor Hugo or Henry Van Dyke.)

I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to meet and mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in the mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, and not in her.

And just at that moment, when someone says, “There! She’s gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

Stephen looked up and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). Let us look up in faith to see our Lord and our loved ones in Christ who are eagerly awaiting our arrival!