The Divine Embrace

Yesterday was a tough day. Grief is a sneaky emotion sometimes. There might not ever be a rhyme or reason why one moment is particularly tougher than the next, or one day more painful than the others.


My thoughts were on my sister-in-law, my friend Michelle. She passed away last year in a motorcycle accident. Her birthday was a couple days ago. But she will forever be 29.


I do my best thinking while I'm driving (or at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping), and I had to make a couple trips yesterday. While I was driving I realized, to a much more deeper degree than ever before, how much God can't wait to bring us to himself, that he can't wait to hold us in his arms, that he's been waiting for all eternity to fulfill that purpose. He rejoices when he brings us home. It's when our relationship with him becomes complete & perfect. Like how it was supposed to be before the Fall - before sin separated us and destroyed our intimacy with our Creator. I imagined, while driving yesterday, wrapping my arms around Jesus' waist while he wraps his arms around my shoulders. My face turned against his chest.



Finally.

Home.


All the wrestling? Done. The Race? Over. The battles - won. Weariness evaporates in his arms as peace overflows. Pain has been replaced with deep joy and contentment.

Tears spring from my eyes - not from sorrow but from gratitude that he should call me to himself.

He has been waiting for this moment for all time. He welcomes me home.


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That is what I pictured. God was telling me that death is the gateway to his arms which he holds out to us. And he rejoices when a saint passes through this gate.







Psalm 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."







Hearing that verse last November at the funeral of my Grandma was shocking and hard to consider. How can death be precious to the Lord when it is so painful to me?

I tend to forget his perspective is complete and all-encompassing. And I dwell in my emotions a little too long sometimes. I forget that our lives are hardly a speck in time and that it won't be long before we're all together at the wedding feast.


Most days my mind is firmly planted in the here and now, this earthly life. But there are some moments when I just can't wait to be there. Within his embrace.




Home.