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You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone, as Joni Mitchell sang.

I didn’t know him well. But now, now that he’s gone, I wish I did. How I would have done things differently. We saw each other a few times over the past 22 years, when his family would come to visit, or mine would go down. But the distance from Washington to California was long, so we mostly heard about each other through our grandmothers, who are sisters.

As I sat in his funeral today, I had moments of welling tears. Tears because I wish, over the past 5 years, I would have made more of an effort to spend time with him and that side of the family. Tears because a father and a mother are without their only son.  Tears because 3 sisters are without their oldest and only brother. Tears because a beautiful and adoring girlfriend is without the man she loves. Tears because he was only 22. He had so much life ahead of him.

I praise Jesus for him. He touched many people, as was evidenced by the number of people who came. The testimony of his life through the others who spoke showed how deeply he manifested the love of Jesus to those around him. And although we never got to have conversations about the Lord, I saw the impact his love for Christ had on those around him.

Matthew’s funeral made me long for heaven. He is there now, no longer held back by the cancerous cells eating away at his flesh. Standing before the throne of Almighty God, worshiping Him with a perfect, Christ-filled body. Because here, in the stain of sin, we wait for redemption, groaning. What it must be like to live in perfect worship, to really see Jesus in perfect clarity! I long for the day when sin no longer crouches at my doorstep, and death and suffering are nowhere to be found. But until then, may I be found faithful.

So I pray, that when I go home to glory, at 23, or 35, or 89, that I will be able to say that I reflected Christ well. That I lived like today is my last, and with an extreme urgency for the Gospel. I am not guaranteed tomorrow; so may I live today in light of my resurrected savior. Oh, what a shame to die saying that I will be serious about the Gospel later! I have been given here, now, to make Jesus known and magnified.

So dance and sing with the angels, Matthew. Bow before the throne of the God of the universe. Wallow in the presence of the one who created you and loves you and purchased you. Rejoice that you are no longer suffering. Worship with uninhibited praise. For He who bought you has brought you home. And what a home that is.

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