I wonder if heaven will include a way for me to journal...This gift God has given me right now, the time to write...I wonder if I will get to write in heaven. I'm thinking not, for I have had a taste of heaven and it is nothing like anything we can imagine. But I want to write forever. That might me heaven for me, it is a kind of heaven now, but that is all it is, it brings personal pleasure and perhaps brings comfort to some others every now and then.
What is heaven? How far are we from heaven? I think we are kind of existing in heaven right now...and we are in hell right now...if you can get your head around the idea that time and space are human constructs, then the possibility that heaven and hell occupy the same space in which we exist might not seem so impossible. We just have to slow ourselves down enough to get a taste of it. We have to humble ourselves and make our ego sit in the corner, so that we can see something besides ourselves.
I suppose I am thinking about that because of all the deaths that have occurred in August, and in particular, the three little babies that the church buried yesterday. Trying to make sense out of tragedy...is really a touch of our egos trying to feel safe. Everything we have comes from God, belongs to God. He gives and we rejoice. He takes and we mourn. The more we do not attach, the happier we will be. Yet, who in their right mind would say that do a mother who is burying three children. I noticed the young nephews weeping. How young they are, to understand loss. How do we go about comforting each other, knowing what we know about the truth of God, and being present and active in the suffering of another? No platitudes are acceptable. We don't need to make noise to fill the air in the silence of suffering. Yet we still want to fill it. We don't really want to know our own pain and we don't want to know (and I am thinking the Biblical understanding of knowing here)anyone else's pain. And yet, it is knowing and being known that is the Body of Christ. Sharing one another's joys and sorrows. Feeding each other, holding each other, that's how it's supposed to work. Kind of a marriage vow shared between each Christian. To be with each other in good times and in bad. To endure it, to celebrate it, to encourage, to admonish, to hear each other, to provide, to be close and to step back. I suppose my analogy fails because I suppose the whole point of marriage is to procreate...but what if we were procreating...not physical human beings, but Christians...working together to build up the Body of Christ? Not everyone will be comfortable with the idea, I know...but stretch your mind...to think about it. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are required to protect and care for each other within the Body, but as spouses, we are challenged to create in His image, the Life of Christ.
Okay, maybe I'm in the deep end of the pool. It's Friday. Humor me.
When my daughter was small and we are almost no money for anything, we drove across country (well, Tucson to Dallas) to visit the grandparents. Having no money for a motel room, we drove straight through, about a 24 hour drive. Bob and I traded off shifts. I offered to take the dead of the night. Bob's parents had loaned us their CB radio to use for the trip.
I recall a couple of things, first, that as I drove at sunset and after sunset, I found the road increasingly difficult to see. I thought I was tired. It was an hour or longer before I realized I was driving at night with my sunglasses still on. What a relief it was to discover that I was wearing them and I was not settling into early blindness.
When it gets dark, maybe you need to take off the glasses that helped you to see in the day. Not everything we have is meant forever. In fact, most of what we get in life is only for a season. Enjoy it and then let it go.
The second thing was the truck driver I "met" on the radio. While my husband slept, I was determined to keep driving and not fall asleep. The 18 wheeler in front of me was carrying toilet seats. (You don't forget something like that) He talked with me the entire night, driving through east New Mexico and then east of El Paso. I did not wake to have to wake my husband to take over. He needed his rest. The truck driver was friendly. I don't remember what we talked about, but he would occasionally say, "Little lady, you're getting a bit too close to my bumper, better back off a bit." And he would tell me about the places he had traveled to. He kept me going. He passed me off to another Truck driver somewhere around San Angelo as the sun began to rise, but I missed him and was glad Bob was rustling and we would soon stop for breakfast...at the next MacDonald's...
When we have a task in front of us, we need to not try to do it all alone. We need encouragers, someone with clear eyes and different baggage, to keep us on the road. We need someone who knows the path...the potholes and the detours and how to stay safe.
A baby being born into the world is hard work. And you don't get a break until it is done. The work, the labor will not rest until life arrives...and we need an encourager to focus on. It takes the pain of the work away, somehow, knowing you are not walking alone.
Like in the Passion of Christ, it had a surprising effect on me. This relationship between mother and son. Keep your eyes on me, Mary tells her Son. Keep your eyes on me, what you are giving life to will happen, the child will be born alive, look at me. Remember. You are not doing this alone. Look at me. The child will be born healthy. The child will live.
Guess I'll stop here and get to my hospital visiting. Be the firm hand others need when that lost feeling occurs and hell seems closer than ever. Help them find their way to heaven...
Love, Cindy
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