Gone From My Sight

My father’s aunt, Hal, is 102. She is the oldest and only surviving sibling to my grandfather who we also called Daddoc. She just recently gave up her driver’s license. Each day she reads her Bible, prays aloud for the members of her family and continues to play hymns on her piano and sing praises to God. My dad would visit her often and looked up to her faith, generosity, and steadfastness. She lived alone for most of her life as her husband passed away many years ago and they never had any children. She would beg to differ though, and quickly explain to you that she was never alone. “God is here, sweet one. I’m not alone.” She told my dad that she prayed that God would one take “take her” just like he had taken Enoch in the Bible. Genesis 5:3 says that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” It was quick, painless, without fear or anxiety. And while this still may be a prayer God will answer for Hal, her time here on Earth is not through.

When my dad’s sisters went to tell Hal of my father’s death, she calmly tapped her Bible that was open from her morning devotional, shed some tears and said “he is in good hands.” I could not help but think that her prayer for her own death was answered in my father’s. My father did not want to die and he would have told her he wasn’t ready to die. But, I know like Enoch, that my father walked with God and was certainly prepared to spend eternity with God.  His exit from this Earth was immediate. His heart attack happened so fast that nothing was moved from the chair he sat in. No picture, no glass of water, no phone had even moved an inch. His head was only bent forward like he had fallen asleep. He didn’t know it was coming. He didn’t have any pain. He was taken away. For me, that brings peace and comfort.

One of my dad’s favorite verses that I found underlined in his Bible as I prepared his memorial service with my brother was from Ecclesiastes 3:11.  It said “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” I wasn’t always quite sure what it meant to have “eternity on my heart” or be thinking “heavenward, not earthly” but as I reflect on my dad’s life, I get a very clear picture of what that means. He lived life fully. Not in a reckless, thrill seeking, “what if this was your last day on earth” kind of way. No, it was a peaceful joy that exuded from his relationship with Christ. He understood the finality to our bodies, to our time here on Earth and went to sleep each night with the assurance that Heaven was real and being in the eternal presence of the Lord was better than anything we can imagine here. He believed 2 Corinthians 5:1 that said “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” I continue to find peace from knowing the joy my father is experiencing in Heaven and grasp onto its realness for that peace.

Recently, an old friend sent me this poem. It helped me to understand the journey from this life to the next. …

Gone From My Sight


by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come 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,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...