A Future Where Loved Ones Wait

We often see people who have lost a loved one, and wonder how they face the

future. But they face it because life goes on, and because the fact is there to face. All of

us sometime face such circumstances. We all one day leave life and loved ones, or our

loved ones leave us, and we go on, as we must, because we must. “In every… age the

thoughts of men have traveled beyond the narrow bounds of mortal life,” wrote a

thoughtful writer, “and, while the mystery of death has been deeply and often tragically

felt, it has never been accepted as final in human experience… The… heart and soul

of man… sweeps past the mystery of death and on into the undiscovered world beyond.

… “¹ How [then] shall we think of the dead?… I can… tell you how I think of the

dead. I think that there are no dead; I think that there is no death;… that life goes on

unbroken by what we call death.… I think of death as a glad awakening from this…

life;… as a graduation… into some higher rank… of learning. I think of the dead as

possessing a more splendid equipment for a larger life of service than was possible to

them on earth – a life in which I shall in due time join them if I am counted worthy of

their fellowship in the life eternal.”² It is this that sustains us as our loved ones leave –

not the immortality of memory only, nor of posterity only, but the immortality of a literal

personal continuance. And so we come again to a reaffirmation of faith – faith in the

eternal continuance of truth, of personality, of progress – faith in the eternal plan and

purpose of Him who made us in His own image, and whose purpose is that we should

have everlasting life with our loved ones, with family and friends. With such assurance

we can face the loss of loved ones with precious memories, and with not too much to

mourn. As Henry de Lafayette Webster said: “There is a future, O thank God:”³ – a

future where our loved ones wait.