So we're not giving up.  How could we!  Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.  These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us.  There's far more here than meets the eye.  The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow.  But the things we can't see now will last forever.

For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven -- God-made, not handmade -- and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again.  Sometimes we can hardly wait to move -- and so we cry out in frustration.  Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it!  We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies!  The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead.  He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.  2 Corinthians 4.16-5.5, The Message

I see more desperation to stay on earth than desire to advance to heaven, except in the very old, very ill or very depressed.  A grandma just told me that she'll often respond to family members who want to make plans (of any kind), "Who knows if I'll even be here tomorrow?"  They tell her to stop talking that way.  Maybe they're afraid she'll hold onto life so lightly that she'll float away sooner than necessary.  Maybe they just hate the reminder that she won't live forever. 

People who work or volunteer with hospice know that the closer a person gets to death, the more they cut ties with life.  We would hope that interest in loved ones would last until our dying breath, but it's not necessarily so.  The grandchildren who have always been the apple of the grandparent's eye may not get any attention when they visit toward "the end."  Even the diamond anniversary spouse may find it difficult to engage the dying person.  Sickness and death certainly sap physical and emotional energy, but there's also a sense that the one transitioning from this life to the next is turning from one shore toward the next.  Maybe we want to travel lightly on that final and greatest of all journeys (even if we've overpacked our whole life long!).  Maybe when we're dying we simply turn toward a light which others don't even see, as if we're already at sea, benefiting from the beacon, while those who still stand on land face the landward, blind side of the lighthouse. 

St. Paul says we shouldn't cling to this life as if it's our only life raft in the midst of a storm.  When we let go of this life, we will latch onto another -- but not instantaneously.  It's more like we release our hold on one trapeze and fly through the air before connecting with the next.  The prospect of hang time is scary.

There was a problem in the early church with folks wanting to be martyred to be transported to heaven all the more quickly.  A letter went out warning those would-be martyrs not to jump God's time table!  It seems there's some of that dynamic going on in suicide bombers in the Mid-East.  Our culture's problem isn't wanting to fast forward to heaven, though.  It's being oblivious that there is a heaven.  Many are clueless that how we act on earth has eternal consequences. 

Dear Father in heaven,

St. Augustine said, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."  Make us long for heaven, O Lord, in such a way that we try to bring it to earth for those who suffer.  Grant us a taste of heaven every day, so that we may remember our future.  Amen

Pastor Mary Virginia Farnham

bluiris27@msn.com