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I hear of a homegoing on Facebook, scrolling through the feed full of pets in bow ties and potato salad recipes. I pause and look at the familiar face, smiling, standing on the shore of a beach. I put my hand over my mouth. “What’s wrong?” my husband asks. I tell him, tears like salty little waves, threatening to come right over the levies of my eyelids.
He put his arm around my waist, pulls me in close. What words are there for times like these? We stand there, silent.
Then I look down and notice he is working on a sketch of our new house. He, the trained architect, has trace paper on top of a print-out of plans. He’s drawn in red ink, the lines scrawled, jagged in places.
And I think of how this is all of us. We are walking sketches on trace paper, thin as air. We are easily torn and incomplete. We are not all we will one day be. We have not come into glory.
When someone we love slips from this life we think they are somehow diminished, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But this is only part of the story. The reality, the hope, the truth that hands us a hanky is that they are more fully alive and real than ever before. They have only slipped off their earth skins, only exchanged the sketch of the house for the actual dwelling.
Does this mean we don’t mourn? Of course not. But it does mean we don’t have to grieve without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). I pause for a moment and think of what this friend gone home would say to my husband and I now as we stand in our house, arms around each other. I think it would be something like, “Enjoy life to the full. But also remember the fullest life is yet to be.”
It seems like something Jesus might whisper, too.
At this I brush a tear from the corner of my eye. I let a small smile come, like the shy light through the after-storm clouds. I look at the sketch of the house again and I imagine all that might happen in those walls—the meals smelling of rosemary, the dirty dishes piled in the sink, the squeal of a grandbaby, the fireflies doing ballet in the yard, the thousand quiet mornings. The heaven-glimpses that swirl around us every day and are so easy to call ordinary.
I want to live well in the here and now.
I want to live like I’m a breath away from the eternal then and there.
I want to know this: We are all more fragile and invincible than we imagine.
Thank You, Jesus, for Your death and Your rising, Your birth and Your return, Your assurance that ultimately all is well and all will be well. We remember, we celebrate, we wait for the someday when every tear will be wiped away. This is the Easter promise. We are the resurrection people. We have hope. We choose joy. We overcome, always. Amen.
He has risen, just as He said! (Matt. 28:6)
XOXO
Holley
P.S. If you liked this post you’ll love this book: What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days: 52 Encouraging Truths to Hold On To
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I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth
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