"That's Why We Are Here!"

 
Yesterday we lost a mom in our school who passed from this life into eternity.  In 38 years in education, I can thankfully count the number of deaths in a school setting on one hand. Each time it leaves a family without a spouse, a parent, a friend and an empty place that was once filled.  The initial reaction to the community is one of grief and questioning the loss- and even projecting that event into the life of their own. "What if this happened to me...?" A HUGE teachable moment that becomes more real because so many have been engaged with this life that once was.
I can think of no better reason to have a Christian Day School and a place where this could happen. Here hope and truth can be shared openly and comfort offered to those who mourn.  This is the testimony of power that rears its head and gives us that Apollo 13 statement: "this will be our finest hour!"  "Oh death, where is your sting, oh grave, where is your victory? -  Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor. 15:55)  This becomes a sacred moment where God can show up in a big way. 
I find great comfort and assurance in Paul's words to the Thessalonians:
¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵ For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,^[d] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Please pray for families who experience this loss and through it find hope in the cross!