Til We Meet Again

Back in high school when we first started dating, my husband Ed was a confident, good natured, upstanding young man, who could have had his pick of any girl in the school. He was an all star athlete, and he picked me over all the others. One of the things I loved about being married to Ed was the way he was always so encouraging.



I miss getting ready to go somewhere and hearing Ed put his stamp of approval on the way I looked.

Whenever I was starting a new endeavor he'd get just as excited as I would. His eyes would twinkle and hug me he'd whisper in my ear "You are going to do just great."

I often wonder what our life would be like if he were here today.

Most of our life together centered around sports. First Ed was playing, then coaching, then coaching our kids. And when I played softball he'd sit right in the stands and cheer for me. "Come on Luanne you can do it. Great Catch or Good Hit, You're doing great. "

We both had a strong belief in God, but neither of us had what I would call a strong walk.

I think I was more like a Pharisee, I looked at the letter of the law, the thou shalls and shall nots, and always made it all about me.
Ed on the other hand was more like Peter, messing up, but in the end having a heart and mind that got it right.

I would love to be able to share the passion I feel for Jesus Christ today with him. We had a great marriage, but I know we could have had an even greater one had we been walking in God's Word, and not treading around the outside of it.

Sometimes I picture Ed at God's side when God begins leading me into a new direction. God elbows him and says "Ed come here! Watch this. Look what I'm going to get her to do this time." And as I begin to do what God asks, its as though I hear him cheering me on in that encouraging way of his. "You can do it."

That's why I have so much trouble taking in today's scripture reading.

Some Sadducee's, who say there is no resurrection, came
to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants,
and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them,

“Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.
As for the dead being raised, have you not read
in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” Mark 12:18-27

A few months after Ed died I attended a support group meeting. I was 44 at the time. An older woman in her 70's was also there, having just lost her second husband a few weeks before.

During one discussion another woman said " I guess I will just have to take comfort in the fact that one day I will be with my husband again in heaven." The older woman spoke up telling us that she didn't believe her husband would be her husband in heaven.

I was aghast! She seemed so sure of this and so resigned to the fact that I couldn't argue, but I was going to believe something different. The idea of Ed not being my husband in heaven was unthinkable.

I never went back after that.

I think of that conversation every time I read the above scripture. My feelings, no longer raw, I can understand that woman a little better. In heaven she would have two husbands. How would you choose. I also have thought about couples who stayed in a loveless marriage. Would you really want to have to stay with each other in eternity as well?

I guess none of us know what heaven will be like... just that it is sure to exceed even our greatest expectations.
But until God shows me differently I'm going to take comfort in believing that not only will Ed and I soar together one day, but I'm believing that when Jesus comes to lead me home he won't come alone and as I lay taking in my last breaths I will hear that familiar voice whisper in my ear "You're doing great. You're almost home."