Saturday 9 October 2010

How Quickly Things Change

Today we had a Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's sister's house. We did the same thing last year. Only last year my dad was there. He was still walking then. We knew he had cancer and he had been through some chemotherapy - and we thought it was going quite well. It wasn't long until we learned they hadn't beat it. The ride was quite a rollercoaster - sometimes we thought it was going well - and then we'd get news that made us think there really wasn't much hope. He passed away 3 months later. This Thanksgiving weekend really caused me to think of him a lot. One reason was that I have some good friend's at church whose dad is quite sick with cancer and probably won't live too much longer. The other reason, I think, is because I prefer to think of my dad as being very much alive. I believe strongly that he does still live and I will see him one day.

That is one thing I'm most grateful this Thanksgiving weekend. While I've gone through times of loss people have often commented to me about how grateful I must be to have a knowledge of eternity and the plan of salvation. While going through the moments, I didn't feel too much gratitude for that knowledge. It still hurt. I still felt sad. And I still felt a great loss. I realize now though as time has continued on that I was in fact quite comforted by that knowledge

I don't know how people go through it when they're just not too sure about those things. It changes everything.

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