Sunday, February 6
Love never ends.
—1 Corinthians 13:8
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I will never forget the night my father died. He had a heart attack in his sleep, and I woke up to the sound of my mother screaming to emergency personnel on the phone that she couldn’t wake him. I went into their bedroom, saw his glazed eyes, and knew he was gone. Many things happened in the eternal few minutes between that call and the time the paramedics actually arrived, but one of the most critical was the almost instant knowledge I gained as I knelt by his body.
The only way I can describe it is to say that for a moment the veil was lifted and I had total understanding. Ironically, that total understanding wasn’t vast and complex. It wasn’t libraries full of the knowledge of the workings of the universe. It didn’t settle any of the burning issues of the day. It was only one simple truth: love never ends—it is the only thing that never ends—it is God—it is all.
Whether my father’s body could move around and live on this earth wasn’t important. Our love was eternal, whether in our bodies or out of them. And it was as clear as my own name that forming loving relationships was all that mattered in the world.
I knew so deeply the truth of what I had learned that I found it nearly impossible to go back to work. My job seemed so far removed from what I now knew to be the purpose of life that I resented every minute of work. I wanted to run down the streets begging people to recognize life’s meaning. In time the veil returned—as it had to for me to continue life on earth—but I never forgot either the moment or the lesson.
Love is the only thing that lasts. To participate in love is to participate in God and God, as Jesus plainly showed us, cannot be sealed in a tomb.
Eternal God, thank you for binding us to our loved ones in you, forever. Amen.
These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2006.
