Another Time and Another Place

My mom passed away last September 27, 2008 and I have lost the words to describe how deep both our loss and our joy at her passing. I loved this song by Sandy Patty and Wayne Watson, and ever since the day I heard it, years before my mom's passing, I loved how the song describes the writer's longing for home...heaven. Where all his hopes and dreams here on earth would at last be captured, and even more, with just
one look at Jesus face. How I longed for that time too. Over and over I cried just singing and listening to that song.... and then my mom died.

Another Time and Another Place

I've always heard there is a land
Beyond the mortal dreams of man
Where every tear will be left behind
But it must be in another time

There'll be an everlasting light
Shining a purest holy white
And every fear will be erased
But it must be in another place

So, I'm waiting for another time and another place
Where all my hopes and dreams will be captured
With one look at Jesus' face
Oh, my heart's been burnin'
My soul keeps yearnin'
Sometimes I can't hardly wait
For that sweet, sweet someday
When I'll be swept away
To another time and another place

I've grown so tired of earthly things
They promise peace but furnish pain
All of life's sweetest joys combined
Could never match those in another time

And though I've put my trust in Christ
And felt His Spirit move in my life
I know it's truly just a taste
Of His glory in another place


So, I'm waiting for another time and another place
Where all my hopes and dreams will be captured
With one look at Jesus' face
Oh, my heart's been burnin'
My soul keeps yearnin'
Sometimes I can't hardly wait
For that sweet, sweet someday
When I'll be swept away
To another time and another place

Indeed, for many of us the day God takes our life is a dreaded one. It is normal I suppose, for like someone taking his final exam, one gets to be nervous how he'll get through with it. And death is like that, it is the final experience one has to go through before seeing God and going to heaven. Its one of these two: either He comes back to take us in rapture, or we go home to Him in death. Both are good things really. Specially the confidence you have when you know you prepared for that final exam very well. And its a comfort to others when they know you prepared for it as well. There's this certainty that you passed, an absolutely-no-questions-asked attitude only a true believer can possess.

The song described that "dreaded" day of death as "sweet, sweet someday, when I'll be swept away to another time and another place." For my mom, Saturday, September 27, at 3pm... it was a sweet, sweet day...when my mom was swept away, to that other time, and that other place...

...I'll surely miss you Ma, but I'll see you again. I'll see you again.