Never thought of this before...

...but it came to mind this weekend as we had a family celebration for the naming and blessing of our new niece, who is just a few weeks old.

Little Zoe is so cute and adorable, but as all babies do, she cries when she's hungry or gassy or whatever. I'm sure she is just so fresh from heaven and getting used to navigating her spirit in this new little body and experiencing all kinds of feelings that she isn't used to. And I never thought of this before, but I was thinking how ironic it is that when babies are born, everyone is so happy but the baby does a lot of crying. Then the baby learns to turn to her parents for love, and she starts to discover all the wonderful things about life, and instinctively wants to cling to life.

Later (hopefully a lot later), when someone dies, it's the opposite. They lay aside their mortal cares and their worn-out bodies. They reportedly feel free, happy, and peaceful, and everyone else is doing the crying.

Fortunately, depending on where we are in this spectrum we can look forward to the promise found in Revelations 21:4:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.