40 Years

Forty years is a long time!

480 months!

2080 weeks!

14,610 days!

 

Forty years ago today

 

Ronald Regan was President of the United States of America

Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Great Britain 

the number one song was "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield

Donkey Kong was released

Chris Evert had just won Wimbledon for the third time

John McEnroe had just won for the fifth time

Sandra Day O'Connor had just become the first female Supreme Court Justice

Price Charles and Lady Diana Spencer had just married

 

 

 

And 40 years ago today,

Lanny and Judy became Mr. & Mrs.

 

Great love deserves to be celebrated!

Great loss demands to be grieved!

This dichotomy makes days like this difficult.

 

 

 

 

It is not that we grieve without hope.

The Bible is clear that,

as disciples of Christ, we are not to 

"grieve like...those who have no hope" (I Thessalonians 4:13 NIV)

because we know that Christ died and rose again

so that we could have eternal life, 

living forever with Him in Heaven.

And so, we look with joy to the day

when we will worship at the scarred feet of Jesus

with our loved ones gone on before.

BUT...

That command does not mean that those human emotions

of love and loss and grief

will not be present in a disciple of Christ!

And - and this is just my opinion -

I believe that for those who serve Him,

who love as He loves,

those emotions may be even deeper, more intense

because - and this will likely be an unpopular opinion -

I believe the Bible supports that His disciples do love more deeply.

 

A new command I give you: 

Love one another. 

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

                                                                                               ~~ John 13:34 NIV 

 

Since Christ loved us enough to leave Heaven,

suffer the indignities of birth,

be ostrocized, physically abused, and killed,

spend three days in the grave paying for our sin

(that sinful nature with which we are born)

and sins (those sinful things we have done),

since He loved us that much,

and since, as His disciples,

we are to love as He loves,

I believe that we do love more deeply and completely.

Part of that love is the emotional "affection" we feel.

And part of that love is the emotional reaction

to the physical, earthly death and 

"for the rest of our earthly lives"

loss of that deeply loved and cherished,

that "two shall become one" (Mark 10:8),

that closest human being in our lives.

There is no shame in that grief!!!

  

So today, as my Lanny Love grieves this greatest of earthly losses,

I grieve with him.

As he celebrates this greatest of both earthly and eternal gifts ~ love,

I celebrate with him!

Because that is what love does.

 

And isn't that a marvelous gift!!!

 

 

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,

but have not love,

I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but have not love,

I am nothing.

If I give away all I have,

and if I deliver up my body to be burned,

but have not love,

I gain nothing.

 

Love is patient and kind;

love does not envy or boast;

it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

 

Love never ends.

As for prophecies,

they will pass away;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

but when the perfect comes,

the partial will pass away.

 

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part;

then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

but the greatest of these is love.

 

~~ 1 Corinthians 13 ESV