Empty Spaces

As I watched the pastor looking around his empty church, bemoaning an empty sanctuary, an empty choir loft and empty Sunday school classrooms, it reminded me of my own empty spaces during this pandemic. I thought of the empty spaces at my next family reunion—a dear cousin and another cousin’s son. When I next see my late husband’s sisters, only three of the four will be there. An older friend breathed her last on Good Friday. While the pastor will see his congregation return again, it may be a while before I’m reunited with my departed family and friends. But they’re not gone from me forever, because our Savior sacrificed his life to make it so. And he promised!