Those words come from the Bible, from the book of First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 55. I stood by the bedside tonight with a wife who was watching her husband’s life ebb away little by little, breath by breath. It was a quite scene, but a solemn one. My wife was standing by my side and the only other person in the room was the hospice nurse. He was sitting on a little sofa at the foot of the bed where my old friend was lying and was texting somebody on his cell phone. The only sound besides our quietness and whispers and the rain outside the window was the rasping of my friends last breathes. We all knew what they were. We had heard them before, but still talked over them, not ignoring them….oh no, we could never do that, but realizing that he could not hear us, or at least we don’t think he could. We talked awhile and shared and wondered how long it would be before the old soldier who had served as a foreign missionary in Guatemala for way over 30 years would soon be escorted from and away from this old cruel world and all of it’s pain and agony. He knew firsthand what it was like, for he had laid on this bed for over a year up to this point, but those who loved him made sure he was well taken care of. At last, I gestured to my wife that we should go but before leaving I ask my friend’s wife if we could pray. We made a little circle beside that bed with our arms clasp around each  shoulders like a football team in a huddle, yes, huddled around in a circle of love we were to pray. I lifted my voice in prayer to God for the wife of my old soldier friend who was dying and ask God to give her strength for what would come in the plan of things, in God’s timing. We all three cried, out of sorrow, out of joy and much of God’s love flowed around and around that circle and we could tell………….God was there and we rested in that.