The Artisan Post

Thanksgiving Day.

Our hearts were heavy.

Still.

We had just been reminiscing about Asher and sharing some photos.

Then, piercing the darkness and the tears, came a phone call to me.

It was our oldest daughter, Valerie.

I answered, and she was crying. For a moment I held my breath, wondering what was wrong.

“Dad,” she said, “you are a new grandpa!”

I was ecstatic. Tears burst forth. Pain eased with instant joy.

“That’s amazing!…………….. A girl? A boy?” I asked.

“A baby girl,” she answered. “Layla……… Layla Ashlynn.”

I turned around and declared it to the group we had been with,

“Valerie just had a baby girl!”

And there were cheers and tears of joy and excitement.

One moment we had been receiving condolences, the next congratulations.

This past week, our family has been carried through deep sorrows.  And here, piercing that……… joy.

We said goodbye to our little grandson, Asher — gone too soon, leaving a silence and sorrow words can’t quite express.

And now, just days later, on Thanksgiving Day, we welcome this little baby girl — our granddaughter, Layla.

Tears of grief…. mingled with tears of joy.

Flowing from the same eyes, yet carrying such different weight. Mingled and mixed.

Tears of joy enveloping tears of sadness.

Our hearts heavy with loss, infused with joy at the news of new life.

Isn’t that like the gospel?

Sorrow over sin and death, and yet rejoicing in the new life, eternal life, available to us in Christ Jesus.

Birth… the beginning of our eternity.

Death, the entrance into eternity.

Jesus, experiencing both birth and death for our sake, the cradle and the cross, obedient to the Father, to gain mastery over death.

And He rose again; death could not hold Him. He ascended on high, and rules over all right now as He continues to gather His Kingdom, Asher included, who has gone ahead of us. Layla included who He just gave to us.

“This one is mine.  This one is also mine.”

And He is coming again, making all things new. Sin, Satan, and death to be done away with. And we will rise and be changed, in the twinkling of an eye.

Ever tear accounted for.

So we do not mourn as those who have no hope. And in the mourning, we can rejoice… especially when given a bundle of joy that reminds us of God’s unfailing love for His people.

He will hold us to the end. And when we reach the end of this life, we’ll find out it’s only the beginning… of so much more in Christ Jesus.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26