Many of you will have picked up online already that my mum passed away on Thursday. I don’t want to say she ‘battled’ cancer because I really loathe that language. It implies that had the sufferer just fought harder or had more steely determination they would be well. There was no fight or battle; she simply had the misfortune to suffer from a horrible disease over which she had no control and upon which no treatment had any effect. Cancer simply befell and eventually took her.

Mum had been under palliative care for many months. Back in January she was told that she had only three months to live. To have made it to April, better yet to make it to her 44th wedding anniversary with my dad despite being told there was no possibility of getting there, meant she lasted a little longer than we were led to expect.

For many months, the news that mum was dying was utterly jarring. Whilst we knew the reality of the situation, most interactions and engagement with mum made it seem like a lie. As recently as Sunday last, she had been up and about, walking, talking, baking and cooking. My family – me, my wife and two children – went to be with her and dad that Sunday and there was no evidence whatsoever of the imminent arrival of death. Yet two days later she was bedbound and two days after that no longer here. We had been waiting for the inevitable for many months. When it finally arrived, it was mercifully short.

Whilst I’m sure everyone feels these things are always too early (who ever wants to have these painful goodbyes?) mum had not even reached retirement age. She had my older brother when she was 19 and so was only a bit more than 20 years older than me. She hadn’t hit retirement age and so it seemed, were circumstances different, she had plenty of life left in her. But the Lord wanted her with him and given how much we wanted her with us, how can we argue with that?

We are so grateful that we, and our children, got to see her on the final day where she was fully herself. They had a lovely day with their grandparents and have that as a lasting memory of mum. We, as a family, will miss her terribly.

I am particularly grieved mum is no longer here, but that is just the evidence that we loved her. What would it say if we simply shrugged our shoulders and went, ‘oh well’? We are sad because we loved her.

The Lord is sad about it too. This is not how he designed things to be. We were not made to die and the world was not created to decay. But the effects of sin in the world means we do die, the world does decay and all manner of sickness and disease must now be contended with. The Lord hates it as much as we do.

But we have true and genuine hope in Christ. Mum loved the Lord Jesus with a strong faith that she passed on to all three of her children and, by God’s grace, several of her grandchildren. Though we miss mum, we are confident of where she has gone. Though we mourn her death, she is now better off than all of us and in Christ we have a sure and certain hope that we will be there with her too one day, enjoying God as richly and fully with her as she is now.

Until then, we will be sad but not devasted. We will grieve, but we’re not hopeless. We will entrust ourselves to the goodness of God and rest in the promises of his Word.