Heaven and Hell: His presence and absence

Uncle Cecil in his last days/hours had his arms upstretched. He knew what and whom he lived for and what and whom he longed for. I have thought a lot about heaven in recent months. We had planned to go to see Uncle Cecil on Good Friday but he went home to heaven on Tuesday before we could visit. I would have told him to give a hug and a kiss to Gordon because he would see him sooner than us. No matter, he knows now.

The closest I’ve come to heaven or hell happened around the same time. In the moments of learning that our baby was gone, I experienced an intense paradox of emotions. All hope and expectations, dreams and connection, living with our baby…gone. I felt abandoned and yet not abandoned. There was my mother and my husband holding me with the same intensity. We would be joined by hosts of people and our family who surrounded us by love and prayers. I am convinced that angels were in attendance ministering to us. It seemed the distance between me and heaven became apparent to me. (Jesus himself went through hell: “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” before returning to heaven.) Perhaps my spiritual eyes fully opened. I longed for heaven like never before. God’s absence to me is hell. I cannot fully fathom it and never want to. The closest I’ve been physically to absence of light was in a cave hundreds of feet below the ground when the lights were turned off. It was disorienting and disquieting—without hanging onto something or someone I lost my balance.

People use the word amazing when they see how I’m doing. And it is. Not me though. I am not amazing. God’s presence in my life is amazing. The power he gives me to get through is amazing. My secret to getting up everyday is that: He is amazing. And heaven…it’s worth living and dying for. I hang onto that.

Romans 8: 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.