pap pap isn't sick anymore

My mom's dad (Pap Pap) went to be with Jesus today. We've known for a while that it was coming, as he's been in and out of the hospital a lot the last several years. After spending the last month at home, with the loving care being provided to him by his devoted wife and children, today he breathed his last breath. Just before he passed away, he had a trace of a smile on his lips directed at his beautiful wife, Beatrice. He was cherished by so many.

My mom, who with others was by his side, called about ten minutes later. I started crying immediately and after I got off the phone my ever sensitive Lucy came up and said "what's wrong mommy?" Up until that moment I hadn't known what we would tell her. She's so sensitive so I didn't want to give her too many details. and suddenly, perhaps right from the Spirit, the words came out so easily. "Mommy...what's wrong?" "Well, Lucy, guess what?!" I said with a genuine smile and transformed sad-to-glad tears..."Pap Pap isn't sick anymore! He's never going to be sick anymore! Isn't that wonderful?"

and it is.

"We love God's people. They are exceedingly precious. Far too often we look on their deathss as a grevious loss. If we could confer immortality we would never let them die. But it would be cruel to deprive them of a speedy entrance into their inheritance. We want to hold them here a little longer. We find it hard to relinquish our grasp, because the saint's departure causes us much pain. We are poorer because of the eternal enriching of the beloved, who have gone over to the majority and entered their rest.

Yet know this: while we are sorrowing, Christ is rejoicing. His prayer is, "Father I desire that they also, whom You gave Me, may be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which You have given Me' (John 17:24) In the advent of every one of His own to the skies, Jesus sees an answer to prayer. We are grieving, but He is rejoicing. Their deaths are painful in our sight, but 'precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints' (Psalm 116: 15).

Tears are permitted, but they must glisten in the light of faith and hope. 'Jesus wept' (John 11:35) but He never complained. We may weep, but not 'as those who have no hope' (1 Thess. 4:13). There is great cause for joy in the departure of our loved ones. Death itself is not precious; it is terrible. It cannot be precious to God to see the highest works of His hand torn in pieces, to see His skillful embroidery in the human body broken, defiled and given to decay. Yet to the believer, it is not death to die. It is a departure out of this world to the Father, and entrance into the kingdom" - Charles Spurgeon

"No chilling wind nor poisonous breath can reach that healthful shore. Sickness, sorrow, pain and death are felt and feared no more" from I am bound for the promised land.

Perhaps Jesus welcomed Pap Pap with his own version of a favorite Pap Pap greeting (as performed by my kiddos below.)