2016 – Trials and Triumphs

The sun has set on 2016. It has been a year of great trial and great blessing.

Thank you Lord for the trials and triumphs of 2016. We especially thank you that our most difficult trial resulted in the fulfillment of your most precious promise for our sweet island princess. We praise God that Kristen has put on her heavenly dwelling, eternal in the heavens! She is absent from the body and is now present with the Lord. One day, we all will be caught up together in the clouds so we will always be together with the Lord.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2Cor 5:1-8)

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope… For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1Thess 4:13-17)

The joy of the Lord is our strength!