heaven

This week has left me a little speechless. On top of the emotional roller coaster of starting our kids in school and Erik being gone, death came twice: a dear family friend, and my sweet grandma. The first was wholly unexpected, the kind of death where you say, “But I just saw him . . . but he just . . .” It’s stunning.

The second was a long time coming. My grandma was nearing 100 years old, and in recent years has been in a slow decline physically and mentally. This last week she’d stopped eating and wasn’t responding much to people. She’s finally free. 

All this brings into sharp focus the frailty of life, the fact that at any moment things could change. So I find myself delighting more in things I could easily miss – the sound of my son’s voice from the back seat of the car, the new blossoms on our lemon tree, the sun rising through hues of pink, breath in my lungs. 

But it also makes me realize how far we are from Eden, how this world is nothing compared to the next. I think of our friend, who had a beautiful voice, and I imagine him singing praises to his God in a way he never has before. I think of my grandma whole, restored, full of joy. I think about how all that we enjoy and love here is but a poor substitute for what is to come. 

So let’s love well and be people of gratitude and wonder for the gifts we are given, but let us put our hope in eternity where all will be made new. 

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” C.S. Lewis