Our neighbor passed away yesterday.

Suddenly, unexpectedly.

Yet I noticed their recycling box still on the curbside for pick up today.

Pain mingled with mundane.

Tuesday morning’s sun rose, a family blissfully unaware of how their life would be tragically altered within hours.

Wednesday morning’s sun still rose, a family (and all of us neighbors, too) now keenly aware of mortality and the weight of grief . . .

yet undergirded with unshakable Hope and – though this moment blurred with tears – with sight to see beyond the temporary (2 Corinthians 4:18).

“‘Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.’

Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’

Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him . . .

These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.'”

John 14:1-7, 25-27

This passage was my Scripture prompt for adoration today – for pausing to adore our Triune God for His Truth that consistently anchors our shaky souls (Hebrews 6:19) and is a lamp to our feet (Psalm 119:105) in these shadowlands.

In God’s kindness to the whole of humanity, He allows eyes that are blind to His goodness and glory to still behold the beauty of a sherbet-colored sunset, a blooming rosebud, a baby’s dimpled knuckles, the Grand Canyon . . .

May He grant us eyes to see His glory today – to recognize His lavish provision rained down on both the farmer’s who love Him and those who denounce Him (Matthew 5:45) as unmerited blessings straight from His heart. Every gift meant to point us to the goodness of the Giver – a visual invitation to eternal life with Him forever and abundant life with Him today.

As we navigate a world wrestling with grief and hopelessness, may we display the steadfast hope we have in Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18); may we be a light in the darkness (1 Thessalonians 5:5); may we bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25) and thus bring glimpses of Eden back to the brokenness, providing a foretaste of what is to come to those parched and weary and looking for a way forward –

for the Way.

Life goes on. Recycling bins still need to be brought to the road, even after the painful death of a loved one.

But in Christ, we have the Hope and the Way to Life that truly goes on . . . into Forever, bursting beyond the boundaries of what our fragile minds can comprehend.