I have managed to spend more than my share of time in cemeteries, though not doing what you might think. I don't really go to "visit" graves of people I have known. In fact, I rarely go to a cemetery to see the grave of an ancestor.
I do go to a local cemetery frequently, however, to locate and mark graves for military memorial services. Finding these graves are often very difficult as the grids of the cemetery plots don't match the more randomly placed actual tombstones. I commented to the cemetery director this year that some of the people we look for seem to "get up and move" from year to year, because we have such a hard time locating the tombstones each year.
The truth of the matter is that at some point many of the bodies in those graves will "get up and move:"
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord," (I Thessalonians 4: 16,17.)
One day the Lord will return and those who know Him, who are His children, will either be resurrected ("O grave, where is thy sting?") or will be raptured from this life ("O death, where is thy victory?") and together we shall meet our Lord in the air.
When the sights and sounds, the shoutings and tumults of this life cry out to us that all is hopeless, let us remember we have the One Blessed Hope, and let us rest in His ever faithfulness. There are great days ahead. . .
Welcome Home Children
by Vonda Beerman
A great day is coming
Heaven's gates will open wide
and all who love the Lord will enter in
To join with their loved ones
Who in Jesus Christ have died
Their eternal life in heaven will begin
And the Lord himself will greet us
Oh what joy will fill that day
When with the voice of the proudest father
He'll look at us and say
Welcome home children this is the place I've prepared for you
Welcome home children now that your work on earth is through
Welcome home children ye who have followed so faithfully
Welcome home children, Welcome home children!
Here where I am you shall always be, Forever rejoicing with me!
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