One of the ladies in our congregation recently lost her father, and in counseling and encouraging her, I’m reminded of what the great American pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 58) wrote. Having contracted smallpox through a botched innoculation, Edwards wrote to his daughter the last words of his that we have.

And as to my children, you are now to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you.

Jesus says in Matthew 19:29:

And everyone who loses houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Amen. May it be so for all of us.