No one likes facing end of life situations. That’s because addressing the decline of a loved one brings our own mortality into focus like nothing else. It’s a reflecting pool that few want to peer into for very long. Even the best photo-shopping our modern technology offers can’t brush out the ravaging effects of age. As someone else put it, we leave this world “with all the limitations of a baby, but none of the loveliness.”Perhaps that’s more fearful than death itself.The loss of one’s very self. Unable to move forward… barred from accessing what’s behind.Paul invites believers to be freed from the chains of this terrestrial view and maintain a hope-filled eternal perspective. “The body that is sown is perishable, is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, raised in power; it is sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor 15:42-44)Our loved ones may be gone, but the hope that keeps us going is that our parting is only for a moment. We’ll be united one day in a place where there is “no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain.” (Rev 21:4)