Scripture of the Day - Paul (I Th 4:13-17)

Over the course of the past few days this passage of scripture keeps coming to my mind unprompted and unsolicited by me, which is to say, I know from whence it is originating. Each instance of this comes to me in the context of finding myself thinking of the late Todd Perry with whom I attended grades 7-12 at Atascadero Junior High School and Atascadero High School in the 1980s. Last week he died beautifully on his own terms of Type-1 Diabetes at age 45, ending a 35-year epic battle with that dread disease. In the end Todd won as did Todd's Creator as did those of us who love Todd and know Christ and thus look forward to being reunited with Todd outside of Time.

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed in regards to those in Christ whom we have lost to physical death so that you do not grieve as those in the world who sorrow without hope. For just as we believe that Jesus died and resurrected, we also know that those who have left this world knowing Jesus shall be brought along with Him upon His return. For we remind you that God's Word tells us that the physically living upon the Lord's return will surely not precede the physically dead. For our Lord Jesus Himself  will descend from heaven with a loud declaration, like the voice of an archangel trumpeting, and the physically departed shall appear first. Then the physically living shall be snatched up together and join them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the sky and so be with Him forever. ~  I Thessalonians 4:13-17 (Kimicus ad Aburdum translation)