Home-going is not Mourning but Celebrating
By Goldie Chong
Li was a young woman at the height of her career, a well-respected tax consultant. Then her world collapsed. She was diagnosed with a fast growing bone cancer. She determined to live. She exhausted all treatment by the Australian doctors so she sought treatment from different places, going to China several times but all to no avail. Our church folks kept in touch with her throughout her exhausting travels and treatments, visiting, praying, encouraging, strengthening her faith. Knowing that Jesus Christ loved her, forgave her sins and would be waiting for her after she leaves this world, she was no longer fearful. Gradually she became so weak she was transferred to a hospice ward where one day she told me she wanted me to conduct her funeral & discuss with her the funeral service. So we planned the program, the hymns, scriptures, eulogies, etc. She told her little daughter that she must wear a pretty dress at the funeral and that it would be a celebration of her home-going. Indeed it was a beautiful occasion and her church friends did not wear black. 
Jesus Christ
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
John 14:1-3
Paul, the Apostle:
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
1Cor.15:51-55
Paul’s final words to his spiritual son Timothy
For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
2 Tim.4:6-8
