My sister, Marian, went home to be with the Lord last week. It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting in a hamburger joint listening to Pat Boone singing “Love Letters in the Sand” on the juke box. Just yesterday she took me to one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas where we ate lunch with the cowboys, drinking iced tea out of #2 tin cans. But time flies and before you know it if life is viewed through the rearview mirror rather than the windshield.
The people that I can share history with continues to get smaller. I knew Marian my whole life and like all siblings we had our squabbles, yet I always knew that she was on my side and she was so good at encouraging me. But now, she is no longer at the other end of the phone or sending me goofy emails and there is a silence that will never go away this side of heaven. And there is an emptiness, a loneliness, that is real.
As we face death, the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism comes to mind, reminding us of some relevant, important, foundational truths.
The catechism asks, What is thy only comfort in life and death?
This is the answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
This confidence brought the Apostle Paul to write, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. For to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” And Paul goes on to remind us that as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ death does bring sorrow. The sorrow of separation and of loss. But not the sorrow of despair and hopelessness. For we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. Death does not separate us from God, from His love, or from His eternal plans for us.
Marian was an accomplished soloist singing in churches and on radio. There is a song that she used to sing frequently that echoes the catechism’s teaching, it is titled:
Overshadowed
How desolate my life would be,
How dark and dreary my nights and days,
If Jesus’ face I did not see,
To brighten all earth’s weary ways
Now judgment fears no more alarm,
I dread no death, nor Satan’s power;
The world for me has lost its charm,
God’s grace sustains me every hour.
chorus:
I’m overshadowed by His mighty love
Love eternal, changeless pure.
Overshadowed by His mighty love
Rest is mine, serene, secure.
He died to ransom me from sin,
He lives to keep me day by day,
I’m overshadowed by his mighty love,
Love that brightens all my way.
The last time I talked with Marian was about two weeks before her death. She was joyful, even when discussing her losing battle with cancer. Joyful that she was the Lord’s and in His sovereign hands. Joyful as she told me she loved me and would see me soon.
Marian is with her Lord whom she loved and sought to serve. I rejoice in that…but I still miss her.
I better call my other sister, Betty, and see how she is doing.
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