When my husband wondered if the tumor found by ultrasound would take me or our child from him, he rested on Jesus’ words in John 10, clinging to the fact that not even death would snatch us from God’s hand. And if we are always in God’s hands, then death must be like God closing His hand on our earthly life, and opening it to our new life in righteousness. God holds us in His hands the way we might cradle a small animal in ours, or cradle a child in our arms.


To be here on earth as Christ’s is good, but to live sinlessly before God’s face in eternity is better. We can take comfort when thinking of believers who have died. Though we miss them and grieve deeply, we know God is protecting and loving them far better than we ever could. Jesus’ promise to carry us through should give us comfort individually, too, as we think about our own death, whether imminent or years away. Jesus has taken away our reasons to fear death. In what better place could we be, if we are carried in the hands that made the universe?