On News of Her Passing

I just read that the wife of a dear friend has passed away. My heart aches for him. After a marriage of somewhere around fifty years, she became ill, and now she's gone.

We prayed for the two of them every night over the past month or two when we heard she was sick. That God would heal her. That God's will would be done. That God would comfort him.

It is especially poignant when here I am, so fresh and new in the world of marriage. I am just becoming accustomed to the joys of knowing Melissa, to the deep, precious friendship that grows stronger every day. She is everything to me. I would do anything for her. And I don't say that in a cliché, romantic comedy kind of way. Because I've learned that "doing anything" for the woman you love means rubbing her feet after you've been at work for 8 hours. It means doing the dishes. It doesn't mean vanquishing evil.

But this is six months, not sixty years. This is infancy, with the world new and bright. Learning to talk, learning to walk. We hold hands and learn the names of things together, and all our plans for our lives are like playing pretend. We dream of our house and children while we sit alone in our one bedroom apartment. We're playing dress-up still, really.

Yet still I cling to her, and love her more than I could think possible. Words fall short. It's a love that describes me, not one that I can sum up with a sentence or a pithy quote. It's part of something greater, something that exists without me, that existed before me.

What was their love? If I am so submerged in this nascent love, what is the depth of a love that has seen so much over so long? Is it a torrent, or a Great Lake?

In the midst of this, I have to remember that it is not just love that conquers all, but Love that conquered all.

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For 'God has put all things in subjection under his feet.' But when it says, 'all things are put in subjection,' it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all."

- 1 Corinthians 15:17-28

Grace and peace,
Sam