Judson’s graveside burial service was the hardest event of this journey.  There was such a sense of finality as Jud’s casket was lowered into the depths of the earth.  My eyes were already weary from grief, but on this occasion they were swollen and saturated with tears as I wept and wept over the loss of my Jud Bud.

 

This was the moment of letting go.  I did not want to let go.  I desperately wanted God to give me my boy back.  He did not.  I had to let go.

Because it was so difficult to mentally release him, I did something that many probably do not do…I stayed to observe as the burial attendants covered Jud’s grave.  I needed closure.

I sat under the shade of a nearby tree and watched as a tractor began to pour dirt over the vault that held Judson’s body.  Mounds upon mounds of dirt were used to fill his grave.  What I did not anticipate, was the force by which the tractor then pounded the soil to compact the dirt.  Each thud was so powerful that it shook the ground where I had settled.  It felt like a violent earthquake.

I was horrified.  But in that same moment, I was reminded of the ultimate quake that is described in Revelation 16:18…“And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty.”-Revelation 16:18

Though I am theologically unclear of the timeline, I know this quake will, in some way, coincide with the release of Jud’s body from its earthly grave.  Wherein “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.”-I Thessalonians 4:16-17

In this revelation, I found great comfort.  One day I will be with the Lord, and at that time, I will also be reunited with Jud.

So with each rumble, I imagined our reunion.  Oh, how sweet it will be!