"Where O death is your victory?"

This last week has been a refreshing time for me. Except for being in a new house, Christmas has remained similiar to previous family Christmases. This Christmas has a special significance because I will be leaving for two years and this time next year will find me in Suriname minus my family. I have given signficant thought to what I want to say to each member of my family to let them know I love them and all they mean to me. This brings me to my Grandpa, Robert Cotton.

My Grandpa is 81 years old and in failing health. Earlier this week he was admitted to the hospital where he is currently staying. As is true for most people venturing into their eighth decade of life, he has a number of bodily ailments which put him in persistent pain most days. When asked how he's doing, his favorite response laced with a touch of humor is: "I'm doing no good". Unlike the rest of the family, every year has seen him grow progressively imobile, sick and helpless. He's spending this Christmas lying on a hospital bed in a drug induced sleep.

I understand that my Grandpa's days are on this planet are short and I have faced the reality that he may not be alive when I get back in two years. While visiting Grandpa in the hospital yesterday and seeing him breathing laboriously, pale and incoherent I was faced with the inevitability of my own death and the disheartening end we will all one day experience. Later I went home and was reading I Corinthians 15 and the Lord spoke as he always does through his word.

"For since death came through a man, the ressurection of the dead came through a man, the ressurection of the dead also comes through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."v.21-22

Chapter 15 is so powerful in that the Apostle Paul gives two drastic realities regarding Jesus' resurrection from the dead. There's no middle ground. If resurrection from the dead is untrue then:

• our preaching and faith are useless. v.14
• we are false witnesses about God. v.15
• Christ has not been raised from the dead. v. 16,13
• your faith is futile
• you are sitll in your sins. v.17
• those already died who believed in Christ are lost v.18
• We are to be pitied more than all men. v.19

But CHRIST HAS BEEN RAISED and as it says in v. 26 "The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

My Grandpa is a believer and I find comfort as do all Christians do in the promise of eternal life to those who put their faith in the Son. I don't know how many days my Grandpa has left on this earth any more than I have knowledge of my own. I do know that man was not created to die and therefore he can never find any solace or peace about it apart from faith in Jesus. In him we have hope that will not disappoint.

As I celebrate Christmas I hope to better grasp the magnitude of that serene night over 2,000 years ago when our only hope for salvation came to Earth in the form of baby Jesus. And 33 years late what was written would be fulfilled:

"Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?"

"Death has been swallowed up in victory!"

I'm going to visit Grandpa in a few hours and I hope he is conscious so I can read him a letter I wrote to him with the intention of giving it to him before I left on January 5th. Please pray for him and my remaining days we will spend together.

I am currently the epitome of a rogue blogger commiting the sin of omission by failing to create new posts. But I have no excuse now since training is over and I'm home and there is high speed internet and its snowing outside and my ankle is sprained so I can't run. I'm reflecting on my two months of missionary training and I'd have to say that the most meaningful aspect of training at the ILC in Virginia was the growing brotherhood with my field partner Taylor. I've learned from experience that a solid, true, and genuine friend is a rarity. Me and T had been looking at similiar jobs at candidate conference in July when we met and had decided to do the Extreme team in Peru. We put Suriname as our third choice together so that if by chance our first and second went through we would be partners since that job required it. I didn't expect our first and second choices to fall through but they did and I know now that it was all part of the Lord's plan. The Suriname job description was similiar to our first choice but Extreme team was not a partner job. After getting a reality check from those who have done similiar assignments describing the isolation and loneliness that comes with living in the interior for weeks or months at a time I was further comforted that I was not going to be going solo. I know that the Lord is always with us as believers and he is all we need but I also know he created us to be in fellowship with others. Our common refrain during the last nine weeks came from Proverbs: "as iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another". This was very much the case for us. We had a consistent prayer time every night and we had a recap of the day expressing our concerns, requests, joys, frustrations etc. We had an open honest accountability time once a week that actually became a highlight for me. I know that every person genuinely desires to be truthful and transparency with others. As it says in John 8:32 "the truth will set you free". I learned a lot about myself and how easily I become distracted by various relationships and lose focus. I was encouraged because Taylor always listened and gave me guidance and encouraged me to stay focused on the objective we have: sharing Christ with others. If I didn't have a brother in the Lord to sharpen me, I don't think I'd be broken but I would be much more dull. All that serious stuff aside, it was a fun just hanging out, playing sports, hanging on trees over the river, playing disc golf in the snow with glow sticks etc. Now our departure is just over two weeks away and the next twenty two months are gonna be a mix of trials, joys, sickness, adventure but through all that I'm glad to being sharing it with a friend who has become a brother.