Countdown to Christmas Day 2: Everlasting Life

Like many in East Tennessee, I watched in anguish as local TV stations told of the devastating school bus accident that took the lives of one woman and two young girls and injured numerous other small children this afternoon. We saw blood-stained foreheads and scraped chubby cheeks. We saw first responders holding hands with small children as they moved away from the scene of the accident to safety. In the press conference the chief of police choked on his tears and the school superintendent almost couldn't speak he was so emotional about the tragedy that had just occurred. The whole city is stunned.

I thought about the mothers who hurried their backpack laden wee ones onto the bus this morning, never once thinking the kiss goodbye would be their last. Moms and Dads put their little ones on buses every day and think very little of it. Every afternoon the big yellow bus brings their precious children home again, safe and sound. But not today. How many of them already had Christmas presents hidden away? The kids probably already wrote their letters to Santa asking for Disney princesses and Lego sets and computer games. There are some very empty arms in East Knoxville tonight and my heart breaks for them.

Once upon a time a loving Heavenly Father sent his Only Begotten Son into the world knowing he would suffer unspeakable pain of body and spirit. He knew that through the atonement of Jesus Christ all his children would have the opportunity to come back and live with him again, forever. When tragedy strikes and death takes loved ones away from us, we have hope through the atonement of Christ. Everlasting life is possible.

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I Cornithians 15: 51-52, 54, 57

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