Three Musketeers

L-R Betty, Verna (my mother), Imogene (Phillip's mother)

"And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world." (1 Cor. 15:19)

I just took the traditional birthday, homemade apple pie out of the oven.

It's Betty's 84th birthday tomorrow.

When we lived on Cherokee Circle in the 1990s, our mothers and neighbor, Betty, became fast friends and called themselves the three musketeers. Verna died in 2003, Imogene in 2008, and Betty is now afflicted with severe dementia and lives in a nursing home - a pitifully sad ending to a beautiful friendship? 

No way, Hosea! Their best days are yet to come!

For hear and know this, beloved: separation, pain, sorrow, and weeping last a mere moment in never-ending eternity, and what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory God will reveal to us (Rom. 8:18)! 

For eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the stupendously glorious things which God has prepared for them that love Him (2 Cor. 2:9) - a heavenly home where God wipes away every tear from our eyes, and there's no longer death or mourning or crying or pain (Rev. 21:4).

Therefore, rejoice, dear one! Be hopeful! Never give up! In Jesus, the best is yet to come.