Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

I'm Bill Crowder, and I called today's reading Ready to Go.

During the coronavirus pandemic, many suffered the loss of loved ones.

On November 27, 2020, our family joined their ranks when

B. Crowder, my 95-year-old mom, died, though not from COVID-19. Like so many other families,

we weren't able to gather to grieve mom and honor her life or encourage one another. Instead, we used other means to celebrate her loving influence,

and we found great comfort from her insistence that if God called her home,

she was ready and even eager to go.

That confident hope, evidenced in so much of mom's living,

was also how she faced death. Facing possible

death, Paul wrote in Philippians chapter one, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

I'm torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is

more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Even with his legitimate desire to stay and help

others, Paul was drawn to his heavenly home with Christ. Such confidence changes how we view the

moment when we step from this life to the next.

Our hope can give great comfort to others in their own season of loss. Although we grieve the loss of those we love, believers in Jesus don't grieve like those who have no hope.

True hope is the possession of those who know him.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Philippians chapter 1

verses 21 through 30.

For to me, to live as Christ and to die as gain, if I'm going to go on living in the body,

this will mean fruitful labor for me, yet what shall I choose?

I do not know.

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