Revelation 22: All things end

All things end.

Good marriages end. When one saint dies another is left in grief and loss. And if that person remarries, that marriage too will end one day, and the cycle of grief and loss will resume. It's called the curse of death and it's been that way since the first garden.

Childhood ends. This year my middle child turned 18 and went off to college. This summer my youngest got her license and a "new" car. I filled her gas tank and stood near the gas pumps at the store down the road from my house, returning her wave and seeing her smile in the rear view mirror as she pulled away and headed off to Wolcott and her young man.

This blog ends. Today. In a year of unprecedented loss it has been my constant companion, patient listener to my stories, processor of my grief, and best of all, the place where Jesus has met me on an almost daily basis. His example, his teaching, his comforting Spirit - narrow is the road of godly grief and trial and he has been here with me, pulling me to my feet with a smile and walking ahead on the path. Bless him for his faithfulness.

Human history and the heavens and the earth as we know it will end, as foretold in Revelation 21. Every verse of the Bible since Genesis 1:1 has recounted, discussed or foretold the history of beautiful, agonized Earth and her people. Until Revelation 22, where God reveals a new earth, and a new heaven. The curse of death is gone. Creation - all things - has come full cycle, back to the tree of life, the crystal river, and the sinless bride and bridgegroom.

All things end. Marriages, childhood, blogs, heaven and earth. Knowing this, what will I do? I will rest in Jesus Christ, who alone is not a "thing", who has always been and always will be. To follow in obedience, trust and love - is that not the high and precious calling of the godly bride? He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. From before creation, during creation, in God's promise of a seed of Eve who would crush the dragon, at Bethlehem, Galilee, Golgatha, and the Garden, in the Spirit-filled church, in visions to the suffering faithful, in Diane's new reality after 5:30 pm Feb. 4, 2011, at the last trump, and with his bride in the New Garden - Jesus is. Jesus is. I serve a risen savior, he's in the world today. Christ before me, Christ ahead of me. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people.