Saturday, December 13, 2014

Until we meet again

A couple of years ago, the pastor of my previous congregation asked me if I would give a temple talk on Sunday morning on the theme, “What being a Christian means to me."

I was on a scaffold shingling a modification to my garage on Saturday afternoon when I got the call. I thought she must be kidding, but apparently she wasn’t, so I said yes. Instead of praying for God to deliver me from this preposterously impossible deadline I’d placed on myself, I actually achieved a certain level of introspection and clarity about my talk that only sheer panic can inspire.

I had some good bullet points to my reasoning, but the more I thought about what I would say, I discovered the single most important aspect of my Christian faith: I have hope. Imagine if “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die,” was the totality of our existence, and hardship and death were its highlights. I’m sorry, but I choose to have hope.

It's the hope:
  • afforded by the promise of the risen Christ.
  • one day I’ll be introduced to my grandfathers for the first time, that I’ll see my mom and dad again, and, so too, my wife, Jana.  
  • the pain and sorrow I hold in my heart from Jana's passing will one day be a forgotten memory.
  • that because of Christ’s sacrifice, we have been given the keys to the Kingdom of God, and no earthly calamity can ever take that gift away.
I choose hope.

Craig Witte is a concrete truck driver for his family’s ready-mix business.

Editor's note: Jana Witte was a beautiful soul, a music teacher who touched countless lives of junior high kids in DeWitt, Iowa, and elsewhere. Her love of music and infectious smile was a gift to so many, including this editor. One of her favorite songs, which she taught every year to her select girls' choir, was the Irish blessing, May the Road Rise Up to Meet You. One of the lines in that song seems a most fitting ending to this devotion: "Until we meet again, may God hold in the palm of his hand."