Encountering God’s Love in Suffering & SicknessSample

“God’s love is with us into eternity”

My imagination of that next place is weak, but my surety of it is not. I do not spend days, moments, hours dreaming of leaving this place for the next, but I know heaven is my destination. I can take my weak yearnings for that place and share them through tears with my daughter. I can console her in our time together and explain how quickly time has passed. I was once a young eight-year-old in the quiet of my bedroom, dreaming of my future. I would look at my door, hoping my mom would come with a glass of water, a kiss, and sing me one more song. Now I’m the mama entering the room of my young daughter. But unlike me, at the young age of eight, my young daughter will begin to dream of heaven—something I never did. She and I will talk about searching for God’s grace and naming it in this life and knowing grace in its fullest in the presence of Jesus in the next life. But in the tension between the two worlds, there is mercy for our lack of understanding, our pain in wanting to remain together, our holding on to this place so tightly. All I know is being her mommy. That yearning is who I am. It’s my calling, and each moment I live in the grace of that high calling. I cannot divorce myself from the desire to always be the mama and wife to my family—it’s how God created me. And my Harper Joy cannot separate her longing to have her mama close and warm; it’s all she’s ever known. But if the hardest is asked of us, we believe grace will be there.

* How often do you think about heaven? If a lot, describe what you think about. If not, think about why not.

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