Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Remembering Jonathan

me and Jonathan - 1964
So teach us to number our days,
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
Only a year older than me, he has always been more like a cousin to me than an uncle. Thomas Jonathan Tanner, III. The last born, the baby of my grandparents, this farmer's son. He learned about farm life early on and became a man much too young. And like his father and grandfather before him, his life would be short.

And so today I am reminded as he slipped away from this place, this world, leaving so many brokenhearted, that one day I will depart from this world. And reminded also that God's Kingdom is not of this world. To leave this place means eternal joy, abundant joy. Matthew 16:24 says For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

Philip Yancey writes, "View death not as the disease that permanently spoils life, but rather as the only cure to the disease of life. For sin has permanently stained all life, and only through death --- Christ’s death and our own – can we realize a cured, sinless state.”

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