On December 21, 2017 my beautiful wife, the love of my life and my constant companion for over 54 years, passed away. God, how I miss her! I deeply grieve over her loss. And yet, it is my loss of her companionship that I grieve, for she has gained the heavenly realm by her passing. Hers is all gain and not loss. Nevertheless, I grieve.

However, when I honestly reflect on her passing,  I realize that I have gained an understanding of several things that I never had before. First of all, I have a deep and abiding sense of peace. I shouldn’t really say that I understand it, because it is a peace that passes understanding. Let’s just say that I have experienced it, so I know that it is real. It comes, I believe, when I focus on the realization that, after many years of struggle with a host of illnesses and accidents, Mary is no longer suffering any pain. She is in a place where sorrow and suffering have passed away, and she is enjoying face to face fellowship with Jesus, her Lord and Savior – something that I look forward to myself one day in the not too distant future. So I rejoice with her over that.

Then, there is this. I was in somewhat of a state of shock when Mary passed away. Not that it was that unexpected. She had been diagnosed with an incurable and terminal liver disease in 1990 and told that she had only a few years to live without a liver transplant. Although she was on the waiting list for a transplant for over 17 years, she never received one. She lived for over 27 years after the diagnosis, continually confounding her doctors. Nevertheless we knew the day would come when the doctors had done everything they could, and it finally did. My shock was that many years ago, the Lord had told us that he had work for both of us and told me that I would have a long and sometimes difficult journey, and that no one would go all the way with me but my wife. So, why was I still here after she passed away? Was my journey soon to be over also. Then I realized that she was still with me, not by my side, but in my heart. Wherever I go now, and for however long, she will be with me to the end, as will Jesus.

In pondering this, I came to understand a statement Jesus made that I had never been able to comprehend before. He said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” How could that be? Shortly before Mary passed away, he had said to me, “She will live.” I had taken that to mean that she would recover from her hospitalization yet once more. But what he meant was that she would not die, but merely pass from this mortal existence into an immortal one. And she would receive an immortal body to replace the worn and tattered one she was leaving behind. This, too, added to my sense of joy and peace.

There will undoubtedly be many more lessons for me to learn as I travel onward with the Lord, and I will do my best to share them as they occur.