Goodbye and Hello

Well, it’s been an interesting week for our family. 

Most of you probably know that my Grandpa Price, who lives in IL, has been sick.  He’s been sick for a long time with cancer, and really fought it.  Recently, however, he decided that he was through fighting, and ready to go home.  Which he did, this past Tuesday. 

There will never be another man like him.  He worked hard his whole life, loved God and his family more than anything else in the world, and was never short on funny stories or teasing comments.  He loved to laugh.  The stories and memories I could tell from my summers spent in IL are countless, but it is enough to say that he was a wonderful Grandpa, and we never doubted that he loved us and would do anything for us! 

When we heard on Tuesday that he had passed away, we packed up and headed for IL the next morning for the visitation and funeral on Thursday and Friday.  Wednesday evening, as we were sitting around eating (there was enough food there to feed a small army) and telling stories, I went into labor!  So we loaded up and headed for the hospital, where we welcomed Audrey Lou Looten at 10:50 pm (for the full story, check out the Baby Loo Two blog).  So, I didn’t make it to the funeral, instead I spent the next several days in the hospital, getting to know my new little girl. 

It was such an interesting experience, having a goodbye and a hello so close together in the same family.  I can’t help but think it was God’s timing (since it certainly wasn’t mine!), because having Miss Audrey around brought so much joy at a time when our family was so very sad.  Not that we are not still sad about losing Grandpa, because we all will (and do) miss him very much.  But to have so much joy at the same time, to welcome a new member to the family as we are saying good bye to an old is such a perfect picture of God’s plan for life that it couldn’t have been anything besides God’s timing. 

So with sadness we say good bye to Grandpa, and with joy we welcome Audrey.

 

 

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

¹⁵For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

¹⁷Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

¹⁸Therefore comfort one another with these words.

I Thessalonians 4:13-18