Life Resting

We walk through the air that smells like life and growth.  Boys run ahead. The smallest one stays to hold my hand, but only for a moment. He races ahead on the uneven ground, doing the best he can in his little body, in those little, fat shoes. 

"Respect the corn!" I say, catching up with them.  Respect the corn, the farmers, the life growing here.  They slow down, walk carefully. 

The warm air is full of life, but behind the bright corn field, I see the shadow. I see the seeds that have been planted in love and in grief; seeds that have not stirred. Not yet. They need more help than the sun can give.

The earth is warm and fertile, and God gives life and growth.  He gives to some and not others. Questions ache, and mix with the beauty.  The waiting is hard. 

Walk softly, boys. Life is resting here.

Yet the blood pumps in my veins and I breathe deep.  Today, life flows in and around me. I am one of the chosen receivers, one sustained by His Word for this moment, this day, this scene on this stage. 

My flesh is unstable, weak, dust. And yet I--what grace!-- I am grafted into the ever-living vine.  I receive my eternal breath from Jesus, I drink from my God who is stable and strong, stronger than death.

I will die, and when I do--whether it be in my bed as age creeps over me, or struck by lightning, a meteor, or a UPS truck--when my body and soul find their divorce, His hand will be the one that cuts the thread and shows me the path He blazed through tragedy.  

(N.D.Wilson, Notes from the Tilt A Whirl)

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 

"Death has been swallowed up in victory." 

"Where, O death, is your victory? 

      Where, O death, is your sting?"

 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:51-58