All flesh is like grass

1 Peter 1:24-25

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

²⁴ For All flesh is like grass,

and all its glory like a flower of the grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
²⁵ but the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this is the word that was preached as the gospel to you.

This summer we took a trip east from California mainly to see family and friends. Among these are Bruce and Marcia. They love the out of doors just like we do. They love travelling and hiking. Bruce and I studied graduate mathematics together, and our families attended the same tiny church. Our girls were the same ages as theirs and had immense fun together. Marcia’s brother had also been a friend of mine when I was in college.

Unfortunately they live in Tennessee on a beautiful farm way out in the country, so it appeared we would miss them. Then they notified us that they would be in Michigan for a family reunion about the same time we were planning to be there. So when we finally got to Michigan, we phoned up Marcia to finalize a meeting with them.

Marcia’s father is a friend of mine on Facebook. He often posted humor and words of wisdom on my time line. Of course I couldn’t help but reply in kind and had indeed done so just before leaving California on this trip. He and his wife lived out on a small farm near one of the hundreds of hamlets that dot the map in Michigan. They were both born again Christians looking forward to Christ’s soon return.

Marcia answered the phone with the sad news that her father had gone into hospital on some minor pretext. While he was there he had had a major heart attack and died. They were at his home packing up things so her mother could go home with them to Tennessee. We drove there and spent a couple hours visiting and carrying things out to their pickup. Marcia told me that the day before going in for his checkup, her father had mentioned that he hadn’t heard from me on Facebook for a while and hoped that everything was okay with me. How thoughtful.

I will miss him and his pithy comments.

Indeed Father, “all flesh is like grass.” Thank You for the very reassuring hope that we will not perish forever but will meet friends and loved ones and live eternally with You.