Two months.

Two months doesn't seem like much time. Only eight weeks; just 60 days. And as I get older, the months pass without so much as a wave hello or goodbye. Summers were long and luxurious when I was a kid. Now, I blink and seasons have passed.

But not these last two months. No. I have felt the full 1,440 hours of these two months. Not each hour bad. Certainly not all of them good. But it seems as if every hour has meant something. And somehow, these two months feel like they may have been a decade in and of themselves.

Today marks two months since my Grandmother slipped away to spend all eternity with her Forever Love. And today, that moment is as fresh in my heart as it can possibly be, regardless of each hour that has passed in between.

I sat this week and listened to the words she wanted all her family to hear and believe about her walk through cancer. Words she recorded just seven days before she passed away. She told us she, "found out His Word is true. He will keep me. I have no fear. He will carry me through this end." How gracious is our God? And what a treasure to have these words, these memories, to keep and to cherish. They sometimes cause phantom pains; where that which you ache over feels present, but it is gone.

I have wondered why our Christian world seems so uncomfortable with "death". We much prefer, "went home to be with Jesus", "passed away", "graduated to Heaven", "promoted to glory". As if our faith will be shaken because something "bad" has happened so we endeavor to make it sound as "good" as possible.

While all of these things may have happened for my grandmother, before she experienced that, there was a very real, finite moment. A moment when she died. Death is swallowed up by life in Christ. Death is a whole new birth. But death is. It is. It may be a gateway - but it is.

I sat with my sister just before Gramma passed. As she struggled so for breath and the minutes felt like days, I told Lisa it felt like labor before childbirth. Like we were in the delivery room suffering through the hardest part before new life could be embraced. She labored and struggled and then, release came. And with it, life.

But it doesn't negate the pain. And while I'm sure that pain is such a distant memory for my grandmother, it isn't for me. I didn't "graduate", or get "promoted" to Heaven. For me...she died. She is gone. For me, she is no more. Not right now.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Because it means "together". It means no longer do we imagine Him and all the expressions on His face. Or what it might feel like for Him to embrace us. That death is as precious for Him as the moment of birth is for us. We've imagined this child. We feel so close to them as they grow in the womb. But then...finally...we see them. Our arms hold them. Our hands wipe their tears. We are "together".

My grandmother has been experiencing that togetherness. But the rest of us "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). This is why the Spirit intercedes for us. We cannot even express the depth of our longing to be close to Jesus. We groan. We wait eagerly. We experience pain as we are separated from loved ones. We have pangs of hunger and desperation as we await our Hope.

But we have this Hope. And, today, I'm grateful I don't have to grieve without Him. I tell Him all I know how and, beyond that, the Spirit within me makes my heart known. And, soon, I will see Him.

But not yet. Now, there is much to be done...