Life

As I was sitting in the cemetery  I thought about the brevity of life. As I walked around looking at the tombstones   it occurred to me that these were people just like me. They had a life, a family, friends, things that they enjoyed doing, and things that they despised.  They laughed and they cried.  They loved people and, at times, were hurt by those very same people. They each had their own story; their own quirks.  They lived a life that was unique, but now they are gone.  There is nothing left to show that they were here, except for a cold lifeless stone stating the facts: name, birth, death.  Even those things may not be seen on the tombstones.  Some of the names are hard to read because they have been worn away with the years and changing of the season. Some of the tombstones have fallen or can not be found because they are buried under the dirt now. Some of these graves, I am sad to say, have had moles and other creatures digging through them, but this is reality! We are born, we live, we die.  This is all there is to this, right? Wrong!  That can not be it, that can't be the only reason we live.  If all there is to this world is to live and die, to be forgotten then what is the point of living in the first place?  Though these people are dead in physically their soul is still alive.  I sat looking at the tombstones and I wondered how many knew their Father in life and therefore are with Him now.  I wonder how many had a stiff neck and refused to come to Christ in life and as a consequence are paying for their own sins in eternal destruction.  Who were the religious ones, who put faith in their own works? Who were the ones who did not seek but were found? Who were the ones that walked many years with God or the ones who found Him as the thief on the cross did, in the last moments? Are they among the forgotten? Their Father has not forgotten them even if man has.  God had a purpose for them and knew what their life and death would bring in the end.  Praise Him! Though I may be forgotten by man, my accomplishments along with my failures, God won't forget me.  He will remember the things I have accomplished through Christ in this life and because of Christ my failures (sins) have been paid for already.  I stand before God clothed in the righteousness of Christ in life as well as death!