It had been a rough night.
I can still feel the exhaustion and helplessness and grief that was suffocating me as I kept sleepless vigil at Sue’s bedside. Three years ago yesterday I was waiting for the night shift to clock out at the hospital. There’s no point in calling the ambulance and showing up in E.R. right before shift change, then having to start all over again with getting to know the day staff. So we lingered at home, waiting for dawn to color the winter sky pink.
Waiting. Watching. Praying.
Sue looked over at me and spoke. “Home. Home.” Her voice was frail but insistent.
Moving my lips so she could read them, I voicelessly whispered that we were already at home. She nodded, gave me a tiny smile, looked up at the ceiling and repeated that simple syllable, “Home.” Then she closed her eyes with a sigh.
At the time, I thought the rented hospital bed had her confused. But now I realize the word “Home” was fraught with every emotion of Eternal Belonging. Sue knew her life and soul had been redeemed by Jesus and she knew where she was headed. She knew it was soon and her focus was on the Finish Line. I would not have been surprised if she was already gazing at those Gates of Glory that night. Her heart was already Home.
But what of those who are left behind in the dust of Earth Stuff? Yes, in those early months after she was gone, that was a common refrain for me. Over and over in my head I could hear it. She had gone on and I was “Left Behind,” trying to figure out how to keep on going forward without her.
Randy Alcorn (who wrote that very worthwhile book on Heaven) says what caught him off guard the most after his wife, Nancy, died was The Silence. That word silence always gets my attention especially in relation to Sue. She often spoke of “her world of silence.”
In the void, the emptiness, the hole, the silence reverberates so loudly that it echoes from every corner of our aching heart. We had let our Loved One into our personal world and they filled that space with Presence and Sound. Then we blink our eyes and they are gone.
Now how do we adjust to the emptiness? The stunning silence that is so hard to connect with?
I keep thinking of something that Sue often said,
“The silence will teach us if we listen”
I have no answers. I do know that often I must be quiet and let the Lord do most of the talking. And He does that. He speaks to me through His written Word directly to my heart.
I also think we often thoughtlessly act and talk and live as if this is the only life we have. In our heads we know there is more, but we’re not living as if it’s real to us.
There is so much more! Another space for us to fill. Another age. Much much more for us to anticipate! For endless ages and ages to come!
And, get this. Heaven, our true home is not only waiting at the end of this life, but it is already Present. It surrounds us even though it is invisible to these earthly eyes. Yet in the goodness of God, there is an occasional sacred moment when that curtain is blown aside, or perhaps it’s His own hand pulling it back to give us a brief glimpse of what He has been preparing for us, our real Home.
Over a century ago. James Rowe jotted down these words,
“Oft, in the storm, lonely are we
Sighing for Home, longing for Thee.
Yes, a sweet rest is remaining
For the true children of God,
Where there will be no complaining,
Never a chastening rod.
Soon, the bright Homeland adorning
We shall behold the glad dawn;
Lean on the Lord till the morning
Trust till the night is gone.”
I say Amen to that!
Lean on the Lord till the Morning, and trust Him till the darkness of your difficult night is gone, Morning always comes, and in the light you will see Home even more clearly!
