If this were your day to stand before God, would you be ready? As we think about the mortality of those we love, we must consider our own. The best way to honor the memory of the one you love is to worship their God, to be ready to meet them now. Are you?

We prepare to meet God, as we release them into his care. When Robbie and Allison were having to decide when and how to remove life support from Emily's body, Robbie saw a balloon floating outside the hospital window. And its image gave him the strength to release Emily to go to God.

And so at the graveside on Tuesday, Robbie and Allison brought balloons to release, to help us all give her to God. Release your balloon to God again today.

And trust yourself to the presence and power of God until you see them again.

Alexander Maclaren, the great Scottish preacher, tells about the time he accepted his first job in Glasgow. He was just 16 and his home was about six miles from the big city. Between his home and Glasgow there was a deep ravine which local legends said was haunted. Some terrible things had happened there, and he was afraid to go through it in the daytime. At night it was out of the question.

On Monday morning his father walked with him those miles to work through that ravine, and in parting said, "Alec, come home as fast as you can when you get off Saturday night." Thinking of that deep, frightening, dark ravine, Maclaren answered his father, "I will be awfully tired Saturday night. I will come home early Sunday morning."

But his father was insistent: "No, Alec, you have never been away from home before, and these five days are going to seem like a year to me. Come home Saturday night." He reluctantly agreed.

All week long, Alec worried about that black ravine. When Saturday night came, he was more scared than ever. But he wrapped up his belongings and went out to the end of the gulch. He said, "I whistled to keep up my courage, but when I looked down into the inky blackness I knew I couldn't go on. Big tears came unbidden. Then suddenly I heard footsteps in the ravine coming up the path. I started to run but hesitated, for these footsteps were very familiar.

"Up out of the darkness and into the pale light, as I watched, came the head and shoulders of the grandest man on earth. He was bound to have known I was scared, but he only said, 'Alec, I wanted to see you so badly that I came to meet you.' So shoulder to shoulder we went down into the valley and I was not afraid of anything that walked."

Nor should we be. This is the promise of God.