Though we mourn, our mourning should be mixed with worship of God and thanksgiving for the life of the loved one who has died.

Will you show God great in the way you die? Will you say, “To live is Christ and to die is gain”?

The prospect of death has a way of getting our attention, of cutting to our very heart. Yet we also have a way of turning our eyes away from Death’s burning light to gaze again at the shadows of this world, stepping back away from death and ignoring the message it sends.