I had never really thought much about heaven before. Part of this was simply my practical mindset. I didn't see the point in thinking about something that I could empirically know very little about. And I felt bolstered in this position theologically. Scripture dwells very little on what comes after this life; the focus is almost on how we are to live in the here and now. But there was one major flaw in my position. Without really meaning to, and while it certainly wasn't a stance I would articulate for myself, with my focus on the present world, it became easy for me to equate hope in God with hope in him giving me a good life now. I certainly don't believe, either before or now, that just because you trust in God you won't ever suffer. But given the level of suffering I had experienced up until now in my life, it was easier to trust that God works all things together for good, making all the bad stuff good in fairly short order.
But with the loss of Midi and Nathan, it became clear to me how much I was counting on everything working out well in this life. And now suddenly, my life will never again be good in the way I would want it to be. It will always fall short of what I had hoped for. It hit me fully for the first time, that the only time I will be fully content will be in God's presence in eternity. I expect to be happy again, or at least happier than I am now, within this lifetime. I expect God to redeem much of the suffering that I and so many others are currently experiencing, both now and in the future. But if my hope is truly in God and not just in the circumstances He surrounds me with, than it is only to be expected that this life will always fall short of what it could be.
Midi's death has driven home for me in a new way how fallen the world is that we inhabit. I need, the world needs a redeemer. And while God does redeem much of what we live in here, He hasn't promised full redemption until we are again in His presence. I am raising two children who I am doing everything in my power to protect, love and nourish, to keep any harm from befalling them, externally or internally. But already they have been to the funerals of their grandfather, great-grandfather, their beloved "Auntie Midi" and their friend Nathan. Instead of drawing flowers and princesses, Emma drew the above picture with her bathcrayons of the car accident that killed Midi and Nathan (the rectangle on the right) and of their burial (the boxes on the left). Maybe Emma and Soren will grow up with a more right view of God and this world than I have because of the suffering they are witnessing at such a young age. I hope and pray that they experience not just this world's suffering, but God's redemption, in part now, and also in the world to come, that world that I am more fully hoping in that I ever have before. While being able to be with my beloved friend Midi is certainly a motivation for me, I also long to live in the world God has for us where my children won't draw pictures of burials anymore.
