For This Very Purpose



 "Away from the body. . . Alive and at home with the Lord Jesus Christ who has made us for this very purpose."

Those are the compelling words etched into my grandmother's headstone. For years, her grave was buried beneath the weeds and brambles of Mt. Moriah Cemetery that had grown up after a lapse in management of the cemetery. It was only this weekend that we found out that an independent group had come in and decided to undertake the mammoth job of clearing the cemetery. In the process, they have uncovered Elsbeth's grave. We decided to make the drive up to Philadelphia since I had never seen where she was buried, and it had been several years since my aunt and uncle had gone to try to find the spot.

 

Elsbeth Heidi Christensen - my paternal grandmother - died in 1975 (21 years before I was born) of leukemia. She was only 34; my dad was 3 1/2, my Uncle Dave 2 1/2. Originally from Bern, Switzerland, she served as a missionary nurse in Jos, Nigeria until she was diagnosed with leukemia while in the U.S. on furlough. To the very end, she loved Jesus with everything she was. Despite being in immense pain, she never ceased serving the Lord, leaving a significant impact on many doctors and nurses who attended her.

 

It's remarkable how we can miss someone we have never met. Elsbeth left a piece of herself - through friends, family members, photographs, stories, and countless other things - in every part of my life, and I miss her dearly. I miss her in the beauty of a swelling piece of music, the laughter of a family gathering, the sweet curls and shy grin of her youngest grandson, the questions left unanswered, the stories left untold, the deep brown of my eyes and contours of my face (we share the same brown eyes and look very much alike). As I gingerly picked my way towards her headstone through the recently re-grown weeds, heart pounding, I missed her more than ever. Tears sprang to my eyes as I spotted the stone that marked her spot in the ground, and I was immediately taken specifically by her epitaph.

 

It is unlike any epitaph I have ever seen, and it is certainly fitting of her life. To be honest, it had never crossed my mind that the Lord had made us for the purpose of being with Him in heaven. Typing that out just now, it seems obvious, but until I saw it spelled out this way on Elsbeth's headstone, it would not have been my answer to that question. I most likely would have said He made us to serve Him here on the earth, to glorify Him, or to have a relationship with Him (or some combination of the three). But, upon further consideration, yes - the end purpose of our lives is, having had a relationship with the Lord and served Him here, to live forever with Him in heaven. What a truly spectacular thing and the most precious of legacies that, 41 years after her death, Elsbeth is still teaching others about the Lord.

 

Yesterday was a truly memorable day. The weather was cool and crisp (a rare occurrence on the East Coast in the summer), and the sunlight filtered through the trees in the cemetery as a slight breeze ruffled their leaves. Dave and Autumn cleared the weeds and brambles that had grown back around Elsbeth's headstone as well as those of her sister-in-law, Lois, and two other distant relatives on my grandfather's side of the family. Then, to the fitting sounds of hymns playing off a portable speaker, I planted some purple bellflowers in front of the headstone. Tears were shed as we remembered and honored the life my sweet grandmother lived. As we drove away from the cemetery, my heart was full. She wouldn't have had it any other way.

"For this very purpose." This weekend has both renewed my understanding of our purpose as well as reminded me to live with eternity always before me. It is so very easy to get caught up in the toils and trials of every day, but we must remember that there is a bigger picture. This morning at church, our pastor reminded us that, while we tend to make mountains out of molehills, God makes molehills out of our mountains. This week, may we remember that this world is not our home. When we find ourselves discouraged over all that is taking place in our country and elsewhere, may we remember that God is painting a bigger picture. And when we find ourselves longing for something (or even someone) that this world does not contain, may we remember what C.S. Lewis so beautifully said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." How my heart looks forward to being reunited with my grandmother and worshipping our Lord in fulfillment of our ultimate purpose there.