Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

To face grief is difficult, but to face it alone is even worse. In times of grief we all need strength, love, support, and encouragement from others. We all need companionship in distress so that we do not feel alone. Fewer crises in life afford friends an opportunity for more genuine ministry than does the time of grief. What can we do to help our grieving friends?...

The fear of death is one of the greatest fears we face. Saul Bellow, the famous novelist said, “The real problem is the problem of death. If people don’t know how to come to terms with it, souls have no preparation. Then the only thing is to be eternally young and in pursuit of pleasure and further sexual and hedonistic horizons.” English essayi...

Will we know each other in heaven? Most assuredly! The apostle Paul said concerning heaven, “For now we see through the glass darkly; but then face to face: but now I know in part; but then shall we know even as also we are known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In heaven our knowledge shall be vastly superior to our knowledge here upon this earth. Do we know each...

In 1909 Pierre Curie, a man who along with his wife discovered radium, was run over by a wagon and killed instantly. The loss of her husband was a devastating experience to Madam Curie emotionally. Thereafter for months, she wrote personal notes to him daily in her diary. In one of those notes, she described the funeral service and how they gathered by the graveside a...

About a year ago, I was visiting with one of our ladies whose husband was in the hospital dying of cancer. He had entered the hospital just four days after she had returned home from surgery herself. She said that when she learned of his illness and his hospitalization, she became a bundle of nerves.  She could not eat; she could not sleep; she could not do anyt...

We live on a higher level. We look to another world. We dream of a better day. Some years ago, an American tourist visited a very famous Polish rabbi, and as he looked around the apartment of this rabbi, he was astonished at the plainness and simplicity of it. There were just some bookcases full of books over here, a table over there, and a bench in the room. The asto...

O. Henry, the famous short-story writer, was dying. His nurse surmised that death was coming very soon, and so as was the custom in that day, she reached up to pull the shades down and leave the room dark. O. Henry opened his eyes as if he were aware of what was going on and he said to her, “Push up the shades. I don’t want to go home in the dark.”&n...

“What is heaven like?” No words are adequate to describe it. The apostle Paul once had an experience where he was lifted into what the Bible calls the "third heaven." He was taken into the very presence of God... an experience so wonderful that he said he could not talk about it. Weak language could not bear the weight of what he had seen. Though we can n...

Traditionally we think of death as a hostile grim reaper, stalking humanity with a scythe. In the minds of most people, pain and suffering are associated with death. We think of death as a dreadful experience and often wonder, “Does it hurt to die?” The best available evidence is that the actual act of dying is not difficult or painful at all. To the cont...