Au revoir Roy

It was Roy's funeral yesterday.  Col took me.  Ron conducted the service.  He had us all laughing at times.  Roy had a dry sense of humour, and Ron remembered it nicely.  And he had us crying of course, because we have lost a lovely brother.  And he went over the basis of hope, from the Bible, of our seeing Roy again, right here on the earth.   He endured faithfully to the end, and so the next thing Roy knows will be the wonderful moment when Jehovah wakes him up in Paradise.

It will seem like a beautiful dream at first I suppose - and then he will realise that he is in perfect health - more perfect health than he, or any of us children of Adam has ever known - and he will know that ahead of him lies "exquisite delight in the abundance of peace" forever - "to time indefinite".  Numberless springs in Paradise.

I have headed my blog "au revoir" rather hopefully - in that while surely Roy will be there, in the restored earthly Paradise, as he endured to the end, will I be?  I can only hope so. I must put my faith in the ransom sacrifice given by Jesus, as that paid back the perfect human life that Adam wilfully threw away in Eden.  And I must try to follow the example of Roy, and endure to the end.

I only knew Roy for a few years, but it was a privilege to have him as a brother, and an elder in the congregation.  He looked out for all of us.

My own dreams last night were not Paradise like. I had this anxiety dream about how all my Filippino brothers and sisters had arrived to stay with us - and we were living in something approximating to our holiday cottage in Wales - no shops, no food to speak of.   My night was spent in trying - and constantly failing - to make a platter of cheese and toast to hand round.

I feel exhausted this morning with all that cooking.

Why do I do this to myself?  What is the point?