Life Is Eternal

Did I really need my child to leave me way too soon to understand that life is eternal? Did I really need to see her go right before my eyes to begin the process of understanding my own mortality? Hadn't I thought of this before, after all, I had LOST before, my grandparents, my mother, then my father, then my daughter...now my brother-in-law, and in between, many, many souls. We live. We die. And in between, we must think of it, yet we don't really. After all, we are too busy living to think of dying.

We only need to look back to the stories in the Bible, in Jesus' day, in the lives of our ancestors, to know that life is eternal. We are here but a short while. Yet, we don't treat it as such. We know it at one level, or at least our mind knows it, and our heart, well,that is a different story. We watch the changes, we find our loved ones gone, we one day find WE are the elders at the family gatherings, WE are no longer the youngsters, we have been replaced. So, why is it that we don't think that one day we will be in the eternal kingdom, sitting at the right hand of the Father, living out eternal peace and glory, should we know and believe what we are taught? Why is that we don't get that, and that we still spend time worrying, fretting, griping, complaining, fearing, believing that life is unfair, wondering what we did to "deserve" this or that...why is it that we don't look at each day as the ultimate gift that it truly is, and why did it take my daughter's death for me to see more clearly, and more dearly...as the song goes!

I certainly cannot take credit for this poem, entitled "Life Is Eternal". I found it on a card while shopping with my sister last week. What drew my attention, at first, was the picture of the seashore, and everyone knows I love anything with a beach scene on it! I even have a secret "bucket list" to see as many different beaches as I can since Allison passed, call it crazy, call it my way of "connecting" with her. Thus far, I have seen two new ones and a third is on the way at the end of this month, if God wills! At any rate, the poem was even more beautiful than the photograph, and I bought the card, maybe for someone, maybe for myself. In the moment I read it, I feel it was written for Allison, and I would imagine others would think it is written for their loved one. Nevertheless, it is beautiful and helps us to know, LIFE IS ETERNAL!

I am standing upon the seashore, A ship at my side spreads
Her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her
Until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the seas and sky
Come down 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 just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There! She's gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up
the glad shout, "There, there she comes!"

How do I know life is eternal? Allison taught me. God used her in such powerful ways.