Your Beautiful

On Friday night I rented the Princess and the Frog for the kids and me to watch. Darin was working late and I wanted to do something fun with them. I had my reservations about the Princess and Frog but after watching it I really liked. I will leave my reviews for another post. As we watched the movie Madie ended up in the chair beside me. When it came to the end of the movie when the cute little firefly died, (sorry if that is a spoiler for anyone who has not seen it yet.) I heard this little sob leak from beside me. I looked down at her in the dark and she was crying. I cupped her little face in mine and asked her, "What's the matter? Did you get scared?" She looked up at me with big tears streaming down her cheeks and sobbed between big breaths, "Ray-mond! He died. Da shadow-man keelled h-h-him." Her mouth turned down in a terrible frown and has she cried. It broke my heart. She has never responded like this to movies. I was surprised that my two year old understood death. I could not explain that the little firefly becomes a star and gets to be with his true love forever in the end. She buried her head in my chest and was inconsolable even after the movie was over. It was kind of a sad passage that my baby was growing up. In that understanding her childlike innocence was slipping away and I could not always protect her from life's harsh realities. Death. Death is one of life's hard lessons that are difficult for even adults to handle. I still have all my grandparents still living and had three great grandparents until I was in college. Death is a reality that I have not had to face often and I try not to ponder very often. It scares me at times. It makes me feel vulnerable to think about losing someone I love. Life is hard and the separation and finality of death can be crushing. But, today on Easter Sunday we celebrate life, and the power of the resurrection of Jesus and his final defeat over the sting of death. At church today we closed with this song and it was beautiful. It was a new favorite of mine and new to people at church. One of the verses in the song says,


When we arrive at eternity’s shore

Where death is just a memory and tears are no more

\We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring

Your bride will come together and we’ll sing

Your Beautiful, Your Beautiful!

When it started people were sitting and listening. When it was over people were all standing worshiping and there was a holy reverence all over the church. It ended accapella with just the voices of the worshipers. It gives me chills just thinking about it. Death is not to be feared, with Jesus it is beautiful. There will come a day where there is not death and no more tears. There will be a day where the worship of our beautiful savior will be like none other that we have ever experienced in this life.