It is the second anniversary of my mother’s death, and we have made the crosstown trip to see my dad, take him supper, keep him company for a little while.
We reference the occasion, but not much. She is in our hearts, and our minds’ eyes picture her face. The home she left behind still bears many signs of her life here … so many of her books and collectibles, her utensils in the kitchen, her pictures on the wall. We quote her some, tell a story or two. But it’s not easy, yet.
We head for home, into the setting sun. Songs on the iPod; random remarks. Something sparks some musing, then some discussion, about heaven. Then, a thought that’s never quite come into focus before.
It is not the “eternity” aspect of the hereafter that intimidates me, though maybe it should. I’ve been thinking how much we patter along here on earth, happy in the assumption that the things we cherish – our relationships, our favorite shops and restaurants, the opportunities to read books and watch movies and root for our chosen teams, our circumstances, possessions, health – will never change. We know that’s not true, but we indulge ourselves the illusion.
And so, time and again, we are brought up short when the relationship drifts or founders … the restaurant closes … we face a financial setback or the doctor’s grim face. The things we have come to put some measure of faith in slip suddenly away. And we grapple with the change.
Oh, how I do hate change.
Perhaps heaven will be an antidote to that. A place where it’s all good, and the good never changes, never falters, never betrays our happy confidence. Where we are always secure in our relationship with our Father … ever content with whatever He provides … endlessly, delightfully aware that those we love are joyful and safe and near us forever.
So, I find a little comfort in that possibility, even with the understanding that I really have only vague ideas of what I will be getting into, on the far side of the river. My small theory doesn’t seem to me at odds with the teachings of Scripture, or the nature of the God I’ve come to know.
The sunset is especially pretty tonight. The yellow fading swiftly into orange, the spray of clouds taking on a deepening, marvelous complexion. The shadows gradually engulf the lingering light behind us, sharpening the contrast with the colors stretching, stretching across that western sky.
We marvel at the sly, rapid transformation … at the intense pastels that mask and adorn heaven’s gates. A line from a favorite old movie breezes in. Two friends – one dying – are watching a sunset much like this.
“There it goes,” breathes the dying one, at last. “Every day, it goes. And every day, it takes someone with it. Today … it’s me.”
Two years ago, it was Mother … only she died at the first breath of dawn. Life here ended with the night, and eternity came on with the faint red fingers of day.
With that comes the thought I’ve never really pondered before. What, I wonder, will that first moment be like? That instant of transition, ‘tween here and there?
Will it really be “instant?” Will my eyes snap open to the thrill of heavenly trumpets, as I’m suddenly immersed in overwhelmingly vivid scenes of unimaginable sound and color and taste and aroma?
Or will it be something slower … like coming out of the ether, after surgery? Perhaps I will gradually become aware of a familiar voice, like my wife’s, gently beckoning me to the new consciousness.
Surely, the God Who created Eden, “who gives us richly all things to enjoy,” who even now prepares a place for us – surely He who has shown us so much mercy in the here and is shaping such delights for the there will get the threshold between them as just-right as He gets everything else.
My wife fairly gasps at the sky transforming before us. The deepening orange sharpening in a line that inches faster and faster, farther and farther across the sky. And then – in the blink of an eye – the orange blossoms red. A deep, deep, unbelievably deep crimson.
My mother’s favorite color.
I, who hate change, have just seen a sky transformed … a day softly perish, and a night come on. Gradually, and instantly. Beautifully. Perfectly.
A sweet assurance, maybe – like so many gentle, blessed assurances I absorb and ignore every day – of His love. Of His perfect provision for every moment … even the last one.
And the one right after that.
“Behold, I tell you a mystery,” wrote a man who loved mysteries. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed …” *
That one, they tell me, I’ll like.
* 1 Corinthians 15:51
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