THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

On Friday at 6 pm Tante Wydia Tan moved—from her earthly home in Hacienda Heights to her heavenly home. She complained feeling weak all day long so she just rested in bed. No one was alarmed because from time to time she went through this bout of tiredness. But, unbeknownst to us Jesus Our Lord came to take her home.

A few days earlier I had called to ask her to play piano this Sunday, but she said she couldn’t come to church this Sunday because she had something with her family. So, we agreed that she would play next week. Well, she was right. She could not make it to church today or next week. She doesn’t need to anymore.

In his book, The Journey Home, Dr. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, quotes the hope-filled words of Victor Hugo, a French writer famous for his work, La Miserables. Hugo in his old age said,

“When I go down to the grave, I can say, ‘I have finished my day’s work,’ but I cannot say, ‘I have finished my life’s work.’ . . . . The tomb is not a blind alley; it is an open thoroughfare . . . The tomb, which closes on the dead, opens the firmament. And that what on earth we call the end is the commencement. Death is the portal of life.”

Tante Wydia is now joining Pastor John Lim, Oom and Tante Ong, Tante Ninik, Tante Lolita, Tante Anne, Dennis Hill, Cie Giok Wang, Cie A-Fung, and the others to begin a new life—a true life—with God. She—and the others—are now free from their mortal bodies and from the pain and suffering associated with life on earth. She—and the others—are glad to have finished “the day’s work.”

Pastor Paul