SHE FOUND HIM WHO HER SOUL LOVES

I lost a precious loved one this last week. It doesn't seem real. It's the place on our time line when Heaven and Earth seem to collide. It happens so fast. Heaven extends it's ladder down to touch earths broken places and without a sound, our beloved takes flight. We will not enjoy her beautiful smile again, until we too, make our journey beyond the gates of Heaven, where she and all of those who have gone before us, must excitedly await our arrival.

She fought a good fight! To our human eyes and our broken hearts it may appear that she lost...but truth be told, she lost nothing, in fact, she gained everything her heart has ever longed for! In the twinkling of an eye, she stepped out of her worn and tattered earth suit and into her heavenly robe of glory.  For the first time she will see Love, face to face. She will "know" even as she has been known.

The One who gave her her very first heartbeat and knows every thought she ever had, will embrace her with an unfathomable love that has pursued her, every step of her life. But there, on streets of gold, with no earthly distractions or disappointments, she will for the first time KNOW how wide and long, how high and deep His love has been for her. (Ephesians 3:18) In that moment she will have divine clarity and seeing her life played out before her with all of it's broken pieces and disappointment, she will shed a tear for having looked at it so long while on earth and getting so lost in it, when for the first time ever she will clearly see that Love was there with her every step of the way. Those will be the last tears she will ever cry. She would plead with those of us left behind to fix our eyes on things above. To feast on His love even while we make our way through the famine we call our lives. She would beg us to stop and as if searching for our next breath, to search for His fingerprints in our lives. She would beseech us to strain to peak beyond the veil that separates us from where she is and to cling to His hand as we make our way through the days that make up our lives.

We have been called to live in the tension of here and there. He has told us to live in the world but not to be of the world. We live in the realm where we see with our eyes and believe "this" is reality. Yet truth be told, there is something inside each of us that is always longing for something we can't find...always searching for something to satisfy that craving within us. Many times we spend a lifetime trying to fill that craving with a plethora of things that always fall short. Only He satisfies the longing of our hearts! Only He can satisfy the craving.

Truth in the New Testament is derived from the Greek word "aletheia". Aletheia denotes "the reality clearly lying before our eyes as opposed to a mere appearance without reality." Much of what we are convinced is our reality here on earth is actually just a "mere appearance without reality". His reality always trumps ours. We have been given breath on this earth to come into agreement with His reality instead of our own. We have been called to live in the tension of them both...and war to align ourselves with His truth and not the one that is a mere appearance. We are in a tug of war between what our soul "thinks" is reality and what our spirit "knows" is reality.

As long as we live on this side of the veil of Heaven we will have to war against the pain and disappointment that finds itself rooted in the depths of "mere appearances without reality." We will have to take every thought captive and cast down vain imaginations that are contrary to the finished work of the cross. We will have to purpose to set our minds on things above, for things which can be seen are temporal and those things which can't be seen are eternal. We must continue to ask Love to help us see our reality through His eyes and not our eyes of flesh. The tension between these two realms is very real. We were created for the more and that is why the longing and craving of our souls continues. Our soul knows that "this" reality is not where we were created to dwell...but we were created to live from heaven to earth...not from earth to heaven.

My loved one, now knows this truth in full measure. Where she is, there is no more longing, no more craving of her soul. She has found the one that her soul has always longed for. She is for the first time, completely satisfied. She is more alive than she has ever been. She is once again dancing...but this time on streets of gold. She is finally home!


"...When I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would not let him go..." Song of Solomon 3:4

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Cor. 13:12