In a place of joy forever

Our house will be 5O years old in June. I guess you could say we are the antiques of 18th Street. We thought we were building our house in the country. It was just a pasture all around us then. Our boys had lots of room to kick footballs and bat baseballs.

At night the howls of coyotes seemed mighty close. Other visitors liked to come too. Skunks, snakes, a bat, a wolf and even a monkey wanted to visit. The boys tried to catch them all.

In those 50 years, we've had to replace the roof three times, fix the plumbing more times than I can remember, replace the carpet four or five times, redo the driveway and replace a lot of trees.

So, who wants an old house? I do! It's home. It's a house filled with memories.

It is where three boys wrote their names in cement and also in my heart. It is where Lance said he was going away and hid behind the butane tank. It is where Emmitt wrestled all three boys at once and ended up in the emergency room with a broken rib. It is where those same boys put paper boots on Old Tom and played dog tricks with "Biscuits!

If our house could talk it would have a lot of happy times, crises, tears and most of all, love!

It would tell of pain, forgiveness, repentance and shelter for imperfect people straining to embrace the good.

Our house has a lot of sadness now but we are going to make it. Our older house reminds me of our earthly bodies. They always need attention. The older the bodies get, the more things need fixing. These temples of "clay" are not to be permanent. A new body is awaiting the child of God. We cannot imagine how beautiful our glorified, resurrected bodies will be. They will be perfect bodies with no sickness or disease and they will be made to live forever.

Those who are in Christ Jesus will exchange an old body for a new body just as you would an old house for a new house … a house that will never need repair.

While we wait for our new house, Paul gives wonderful advice in 15:55-56 in The Living Bible: "O death, Where then your victory? Where then your sting? For sin — the sting that causes death — will all be gone; and the law, which reveals our sins, will no longer be our judge. How we thank God for all of this! It is he who makes us victorious through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The body that lies in the casket is not dead. He is only through with his earthly body. He doesn't need it anymore. He has simply been transformed. Those who have gone on before us alive in a new body, a body that has passed from death unto life,

The Resurrection gives all Christians the blessed hope of a new body.

Those who have gone on before us are alive in a new body, a body that has passed from death unto life.

Because of Jesus, we can be citizens of another world, a land where no one is sick and there is no death. It is a world where peace and joy reigns forever.

Portales resident Joan Clayton is a retired teacher and published author. Her e-mail address is:[email protected]