Pastor Aaron Brown

I’m feeling the loss today… I have so many thoughts and feelings as I start another season of mourning. Spring has become the time when I remember three loved ones, three of my forever people, who left far too soon. Two of them passed in April, and one of them left on this date… Every April I feel it again, I remember their lives and friendship, and I mourn what could have been. Every year I wrestle with death, I question my beliefs, and I reckon with what my faith has to say about the eternality of the mortal soul. As we approach Easter, I desperately hope in the resurrection because nothing else can make sense of this life… It has to be true, or I cannot go on. And, I’ll be honest, today I believe it more than ever. I find deep comfort in these scriptures, and I choose to believe…

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:13‭-‬18

So, as we approach Easter together, I want to encourage you with these words. I pray that the God of all creation will meet you in your deepest point of need, will walk with you through the darkness, and will give you a renewed hope in his restoration of all things. May He carry you when you cannot take another step, and may He show Himself as real when all other hope fails you.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:4