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John 16: 20 and 22

20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.  22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

In early August of last year I was a bit surprised after noticing several relatives online that I had never met face to face and did not know, which is kind of odd for my family that is pretty close. So Sharon and I started a dialog with my sisters in North Carolina and after identifying a few cousins, we decided it was time to go for a visit. After going over a few details, we realized it had been 2014 since our last visit, so Sharon immediately started searching flights. At that time, flights were horribly costly even though we were planning on the  and time, Sharon was between jobs and decided that it would be better and cheaper if I just went, so in October I headed home.

On day 2 after arriving, my sisters surprised me with a family BBQ that was more like a community BBQ. Family and friends from high school all showed up at the house. There were over 40 people that stopped by, and that also included my 91 year old Uncle Jake, and despite using a walking cane, he got around pretty good. He led an awesome prayer before we all started eating and instead of going inside, he stayed outside and talked to whoever walked by, and he and I had the longest conversation we had ever had since I was about 15 years old. It was an amazing time and I got to do exactly what I went to do which was meet lots of people I am closely related to but had never met because of living in Juneau since the summer of 1989.

Fast forward to heading back to Juneau and saying goodbye to everyone, Uncle Jake seemed to not want to say goodbye. I noticed he sort of stayed back, but after hugging everyone I walked over to him. He held my hand and looked straight into my eyes and said, “tell your wife I wished she had come, and I want you to know that this will be the last time I will see you on this side, so I am so glad I got to be face to face with you cause I love you very much”, and on March 5th he left this world and moved on into the next, where there is joy and where there is rejoicing and the pain of cancer and old age is no more. There is only the love of God. Thanks be to God that defeated death and the grave and has made us part of one body where we all are part of one big family.

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