I don’t remember a whole lot about my twenty-third birthday. Twenty-three is a “neither here nor there” age so it’s rarely the most memorable of occasions. It sits between coming into full adulthood at 21 and the milestone looming at 30. These are decisive years in any life. They were certainly decisive in my life.

Though I don’t remember a whole lot about the day I turned 23 (all the way back in December of ’99), I do know that Aileen was pregnant and just entering into her third trimester. These were the days when we had learned we were having a boy but hadn’t yet decided what to name him. I remember “John” and “Michael” being in the running—both good family names. I remember Aileen lobbying for “Ethan” for a time. But in the end we got it just right: he would be Nicholas Paul. I would often lie with my head on Aileen’s growing belly to feel Nick stretch and squirm, to begin to bond with the son I had not yet met but already dearly loved. It wasn’t long after that he was born and our joy was complete.
It will be Nick’s twenty-third birthday on Sunday. Or is it more appropriate to say that it “would have been” Nick’s twenty-third birthday on Sunday? I actually don’t know. Either way, it was 23 years ago that the Lord blessed us with our precious baby boy, our firstborn child, our only son.
This will be Nick’s third birthday in heaven, though they probably don’t mark birthdays there, do they? I’m not even convinced that time in heaven passes in months and years, in hours and days, as it does here. Does time outside the context of this world work just the same as time within it? Since the Bible is silent on this I suppose God judges that it doesn’t much matter. What matters is that where God is, Nick is.
And my dad, too. He made the journey just a short time before my son, the first of several blows that followed one after the other in quick succession between 2019 and 2020. And while I’m sorry that my dad is gone, there’s comfort in knowing that he and Nick are together.
And on this subject, a little scene popped into my mind the other day, a little memory of a tearful farewell. For a moment I was transported back to dad’s funeral in the waning days of 2019. Nick was standing at the front of the room sharing some memories of his grandfather. And as he spoke, he wept—he wept with the sheer sorrow of facing the reality of death and the pain of loss. He wept as he said goodbye to one he had loved.
And then another scene appeared in my mind, though this one was imagined rather than remembered. In this scene my father was in heaven, alive and well and just a little younger now than when I last saw him—fewer white hairs on his head, fewer lines on his cheeks, fewer creases on his brow. He was busy at some task or the other when suddenly he stood bolt upright, an expression of surprise, an expression of joy, sweeping over his face. What was it that so shocked and delighted him? My view shifted and now I saw it—Nick had just arrived and was standing before him. I suppose dad must have expected his wife to be next to pass that way or at least one of his children. But no, there before him was his grandson. And he was so pleased to see him, so happy to throw his arms around him, so glad to know that Nick had made it safely home.
In one scene there was sorrow at a parting and in the other there was joy at a reunion. In one scene Nick was weeping as he bid farewell to my dad and in the other dad was rejoicing as he bid welcome to my Nick.
And it strikes me that so much of our response to the death of a saint depends on our perspective. Though from one perspective we see family members weeping as their loved one fades from their view, from the opposite perspective we see other family members rejoicing as their loved one draws near. While some weep with grief that one has passed beyond their sight, others weep with joy that one has safely crossed over. There is no great happiness for some without great sadness for others. For while every death marks a departure it also marks an arrival. That’s just life and death in a world as badly broken as this one and one so gloriously whole as the next.
And so as this birthday approaches and arrives, I wait to see and experience that kind of joy—the joy of taking part in the welcome rather than the farewell, of cheering my loved ones in rather than weeping them out. And as I wait, I am choosing to let some of their joy filter from heaven to earth so I too can feel it, so I too can enjoy it, so I too can let it stir my soul. I choose to take pleasure in their pleasure, for they are in that place where all sorrows have been soothed and all tears have been dried, that place where we all most truly long to be.

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“Young people want to be courted by the church, welcomed into fellowship, entrusted with responsibility, and shown they matter. But more than anything, they want to be ushered into splendor, not superficiality. They’re looking for an antidote to the shallow life of swiping and scrolling through endless entertainment.” In other words, stop making church trite and silly.

Have you ever thought about this before, that each of us has a secondhand or hand-me-down faith?

This is absolutely true and important to consider, especially during opportunities to evangelize. “The devil loves to get us talking about good things, so long as we are not sharing the best thing.”

This is a reality I have considered a lot. “You don’t really need a bucket list. Or maybe, you need a different kind of bucket list: one that stretches into eternity. You will have endless time to enjoy all of God’s renewed creation along with the best of every culture. There will be so much to explore. Who cares if you can’t fit it into our brief lives here?”

Andrea tells and celebrates the best of all stories.

“Seasons of suffering do not aways produce our clearest and most logical thoughts. The coming together of things like shock, sadness, anger, and confusion can sometimes lead to some wildly unhealthy and even irrational conclusions and decisions. And yet, I would argue that those difficult seasons of our lives can also end up being the moments when we see things with a surprising amount of clarity.”

…despite the sufficiency of Christ’s work, we can so easily slip back into an old mindset in which we become convinced there is still something left for us to do.

Sooner let us have an honest death than a counterfeit life.
—Charles Spurgeon

I once read of a terrible tragedy at sea, a shipwreck in which many were swept into the ocean and lost. As the ship foundered and splintered, as first the lower decks and then the upper succumbed to the winds and the waves, most of the passengers sank into the depths. But still fighting for their lives were a father and son who had been traveling together from the Old World to the New.

As the ship slipped lower and lower, the two scrambled into the rigging and began to climb upwards. But it was to little avail. The rains continued to pour down upon them and the waves continued to pound up against them. Though they clung tightly and with all the strength they had, the elements were set against them and they began to grow cold and weary. It was only a matter of time.
Then the moment came when, to his great horror, the father saw his son lose his grip and plunge into the sea. Before he could do anything more than cry out in grief and horror, a great wave crashed against him and he blacked out. As light gave way to dark, he knew only that his son had fallen and slipped beneath the waves.
Hours later the father, alive but exhausted, was rescued, plucked from the ocean by a passing ship. He was laid in a bunk where he lapsed into a deep unconsciousness. After a good bit of time had passed he awoke with a deep dread in his heart, overwhelmed by the grief of his terrible loss. But as he became aware, as his eyes opened and his senses cleared, he turned his head and saw lying beside him his very own son. What a glorious thing it was for him to wake up to see his son alive and well, saved from the storm, saved from death!
And my friends, what a glorious thing it will be on the day of resurrection when the trumpet blast wakes us from our slumber and when the cry of command calls us from the grave.
What a glorious thing it will be when we wake to find our loved ones beside us, emerging from the same cemeteries—the same plots even—to live forevermore.
What a glorious thing it will be when, like that father and son, we rise to live eternally with so many of our loved ones—those we saw lowered into the cold earth, those to whom we bid a sorrowful farewell, perhaps even those we were sure had been lost forever.
What a glorious thing it will be to rise with them to live forevermore in that place where there will be no more weeping, no more dying, and no more parting—that place where we will dwell in perfect peace and never-ending safety.