fall and hope.

there comes a time in your blogging career when you don't blog for over a month and you realize that probably no one is reading anymore and that you're really stretching the truth a bit when you call yourself a "blogger." and then it becomes obvious that you're probably just blogging for yourself at this point and then you're reminded that you were supposed to be blogging for yourself all along and suddenly it unlocks a freedom to write about anything you want. all the thoughts swirling around your head are up for grabs and you can pick any one you fancy. so what brings me back to this dusty corner of the interwebs?

death.

the death of my blog maybe? no, but i guess anything is possible.

death has a way of making you stop dead in your tracks. it nails your shoes right to the place where they're standing and holds you down with its unwelcome self.

i've never felt like i had any place to talk about death. the thing about death is that it has such a certain uncertainty about it. it's so final, yet so unknown. there's a tension between the knowledge of a celebration and the reality of mourning. celebration, because someone is finally meeting their maker. glory to glory. face to face. but then there's the mourning: the thick, unavoidable, heavy, devastating mourning.

sometimes there's no celebration at all and we're stuck in the grief of a life lost forever.

you'd think i'd just lost someone close to me as much as i've thought about the concept of death lately. but i haven't. i've just seen and heard of a lot of it lately. it rips people apart and pulls others together. it brings us to tears and then shakes us with laughter as all the moments that made us love someone come flooding back.

we were talking about fall at work the other day and someone said that they absolutely hate fall. they hate watching everything die and wilt and end. i was almost offended, really, at their bluntness. i love fall, it's my favorite season, but i had never given any thought to all the death that happens in the fall season. everything, literally, dies. but at the exact same time, it's tragically beautiful and hope is falling all around us. yes, fall ushers us into a season of bitter and lifeless cold, but that hard season always, always, always births the most beautiful season of life. we rake up the dead leaves, we strap on our boots, we trudge through the cold and we bunker down for winter.

but then the snow melts. and the trees bud. the flowers bloom and faithful spring shows itself again.

i guess that's how i see death. it brings us grief and pain and tears and maybe we have to bunker down for a season of bitter cold. but knowing Jesus is knowing hope and spring always comes again. He always breathes new life and He's always getting glory and He's always working it together for His glory and our good. and in death is where we begin to appreciate the spring and the life and the knowledge that death isn't all there is. and this life isn't all there is. the hope is the certainty that one day we'll be glory to glory and face to face with the One who breathed life in us at the beginning of time. and we'll sing holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come and we'll never be in mourning again.

o death, where is your sting?
o hell, where is your victory?
oh church! come stand in the light!
the glory of God has defeated the night!

because that's the reality of the gospel. it scoops us up out of our mourning and our nailed down shoes and it gives us hope. it anchors us in the reality that Jesus defeated death 2000 years ago and in time, He'll call us back to Himself.

glory to glory. face to face.

ko.