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Perceptions #200041
"Get Well Soon"
by Dr. Eddie Randolph
In 1994, my family moved from Illinois to Louisiana. While in our two automobile caravan, our two children took turns riding with their mother and with me (our third child was in utero, so he pretty much had to stay with Mom). This journey took us through the part of southern Illinois where my father is buried, having been killed by a drunk driver when I was only a few months old. It is not often that we pass through that area, so we took advantage of the opportunity to visit his grave as well as the graves of my grandparents. As we neared the cemetery, I explained to my daughter about my father and what we were going to do, not expecting her six-year-old mind to grasp concepts of life, death, and a grandfather she never knew.
As we climbed out of our vehicles at the cemetery, Ana said, "Here, Daddy. This is for Grandpa." She then handed me a card she had made while we were traveling. On the front, she had written, "To Grandpa Randolph." Scrawled across the card's inside was the message, "Get Well Soon."
Ah, out of the crayon of babes...
Perhaps her six-year-old mind grasped more than I was willing to admit. We left her card on my father's grave. It was a message of hope from a granddaughter who could love without seeing, who could wish the best without understanding. For me, it was a message summing up, in a very personal way, the Christian view of life and death.
Charles Farr comments, "we often forget that the ultimate healing for a Christian is the resurrection." Because of Jesus, death is not an end. Because of his resurrection, we will be raised. In fact, the apostle Paul saw the truthfulness of the entire Christian message as contingent on the reality of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. The confidence in the resurrection caused him to declare, "'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Come, Lord, that we may "get well soon."