Every Wednesday you can find me there. While my time there is pretty limited, I try to make myself available to help in any capacity I can from about 10 to 11:30am. I usually spend my time going to visit residents, some of whom I regularly frequent, others who I may not again see. I marvel at the stories I hear, the faces I see, the pains and the simple joys all coupled together. There is something real that happens every time I ask questions about life that those in this particular nursing home I frequent that leaves me speechless and realizing how little I know.
And yet it is very painful. I sat even today watching one man speak about family, about his position as a chemist, and of his Navy ship in the Pacific Ocean in the 1940s. About every fourth sentence he would be searching as it were for a word. His descriptions of what he wanted to articulate with a simple word always gave way to the word, but his mind had slowed considerably from his days as a chemist. I suppose that is what 90 years of life as we know it does. Too, I marveled that he has been married coming up on 70 years. But I grieved at how incapable he was that he needed the assistance of a nurse regularly looking after him because his wife was no longer able to care for him with the care he needed. Meanwhile, she lived in an entirely different residence from him and was not able to visit him often, nor was he able to visit her.
Meanwhile down the hall a lady I visit has been moved from her room into the hospice wing. She has taken a significant turn to where her breathing is very difficult and her body is filling with fluids regularly making the common comforts of the life she has known for so long a forgotten thing. And just two weeks ago I again visited another room of a woman who became one of favorites over the previous 8 months. I know she had been in and out of the hospital in recent weeks so I wasn't shocked not to find her there. But on my way out I asked one of the staff members to fill me in on where she had been moved. I got the sad news that she died.
Death is seemingly so much nearer to these many people I am visiting. You can see its nearness. These people stand just outside the gate, about to leave this present reality, for another reality. You can feel it. You can even in certain rooms smell the stench of it. I love them no less. Indeed, it pains me greatly to know how near they are to it. But I have found a wonderful reminder speaking boldly to me in all this.
Whether it be Mrs. Triggs who was 89 years old when she died, or another gal (whose name I am not at liberty to mention) who just recently checked it at a youthful 57 years old, life is exceptionally short. So what if her life goes another 32 years to match Mrs. Triggs? What does 32 years mean? Don't hear me say I believe in euthanasia, NOT IN THE LEAST BIT. What I am saying though is in light of ETERNITY time is so short and so as nothing. Indeed, this brief window is nothing but a preview to life. Life for those who are in Christ does not truly begin, in its fullest measure until this brief breath of air we breathe in comes to an end. And not until then does life truly begin for us.
And let's be honest, the thought of the endlessness before us, eternity itself is a daunting reality. It quickly points out how meaningless so much of what we are preoccupied with in this "life" really is. I am pained to think of all the moments in time I have spent on myself. I am pained to think of the coming day that I have improperly prepared for. I am pained to think that even some of my day today of Facebook posts, or emails, or a blog post, is AS NOTHING in light of the dawning of eternity.
Of course there is too this great unknown matter of eternity that terrifies our simple minds. I can hardly stand standing in line at the DMV not knowing how long the duration of my wait might be, but that eventually comes to an end. So many of us have this childlike view of eternity, even as Christians, as a cleaner, more orderly DMV, but still no less boring. This is nothing more though than my miniscule view of Christ. Indeed, I see little to nothing now in my capacity to understand matters spiritual. I am a physical monster who has little ability (even with the intervening power of God) to see and understand matters spiritual. But eternity for Christ's followers will unveil the greatest riches of satisfaction and delight (Ps. 16:11). Eternity for Christ's bride will unleash the greatest intimacy that will make everything delightful in this life appear as a painful, dull, even meaningless experience. And the temporal joys of this life, real as they are, but all of which came and come to an end, will be swallowed up in this glorious reality of our realization in that Christ will be LORD OVER ALL.
So all our joys will be consummated in HIM. All our pursuits will be after Him and terminating in HIM. All of our relationships will be formed by HIM. All of our thoughts will be directed to HIM. All of our hope will be realized in HIM. All of our pains will be healed in HIM. All of our questions will be answered in HIM. All of the innermost insecurities, the aspirations, the wonders, will all be fully satisfied in CHRIST ALONE. So then eternity is merely the "measure" of the span it will take to realize the immeasurable depths of Christ's glories. So let the nearing experience of Christ in eternity captivate you and I to live for that and help others do so too.
And so pause this day. Pause the next day. Spend much time reflecting on the glorious reality that life has begun but in part for those of us who are in Christ. But the coming unveiling will astound us to a level at which we have yet to even imagine (1 Cor. 2:9), even as one of my 90 year old residents reminds me of every week. And though the cancer tears at her chest, and her brain, she is steadfast in her hope. I want to know her Jesus. And may our meditation and reflection upon HIM whose image we will bear, and whose face we shall see, may HE motivate us this day to make much of the coming reality with HIM. Even that others may want to know and make much of JESUS who truly is the LIFE now and forevermore.
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