The Heavenly Reunion

     Many of us have lost loved ones. We long to see them again. Hug them. Talk with them. Both my precious parents graduated to heaven- thirteen years apart- by the time I was 32 years old. They died before our children came along. And before most of the major milestones in my life. That feeling of "orphaned" is a tough one to conquer yet being adopted into the Lord's family offers valuable emotional benefits here on earth.
     The eternal benefit though is the one that means the most to me. I am assured in many ways through God's word in the bible that I will experience an unimaginable joy when we have a family reunion in heaven! I hope to encourage my readers today with this uplifting way to look at the death of a loved one. #HeavensHope

GONE FROM MY SIGHT

Prose by Henry Van Dyke, 
19th Century clergyman, educator, poet.

I am standing upon the seashore.
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.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says ,
"There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of delivering freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 
"There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming, 
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout; 
"Here she comes!"
And that is dying.