Donna wasn’t sure how she would explain away the passing of her mother to her own grandchild but as they headed to the funeral home she told David, “Aunt Julie is gone, David.”
The little boy looked at her and asked, “Gone where, grammy?”
Donna’s moment of truth was here.
“You know how Grandma Julie’s house is next to ours but she’s wasn’t living there anymore? She had gone to live at the nursing home but Grandma Julie’s house was still there?”
“Uh-huh”, he said.
“Well, when you see Grandma Julie today, it’s just an empty house. She’s not there. Grandma Julie has gone to live with Jesus now!”
At the funeral home Donna took David up front.
The little fellow stared at Grandma Julie with his grandma.
Then Cindy, one of Julie’s sisters, came up front.
She was one of those women that can’t be pleased by anything and always spoke her mind!
“Why…that doesn’t even look like Julie!” in a voice that would wake the dead.
“Her hair is wrong. Julie never wore her hair like that. What’s wrong with them? Donna, can’t you get them to fix her hair!”
She went on and on but as she did a little voice kept calling out, “Aunt Cindy! Aunt Cindy!”
Finally little David walked over and tugged on Aunt Cindy’s dress.
“Aunt Cindy!” he said, “That’s not really Grandma Julie. That’s just her empty house now. She’s gone to live with Jesus, Aunt Cindy! That’s just her empty house!”
Tears came to Donna’s eyes as she realized that David got it!

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. 2 Cor 5:1-8