Sweet Days

Even if I weren't on vacation, I'd have today off because it's Saturday, but knowing I have the next week and a half off makes the leisure that much sweeter. I feel so relaxed. I have things I need to do to prepare for my visitors, such as, clean stuff out of the guest room that I've been storing there, wash sheets and make beds, wash towels and have them folded and ready to use. I also want to, if possible, finish transferring a lot of books into the room that will henceforth function as a library. I keep calling it the library but right now it's really the room with empty shelves.

It's funny how as you think about one thing, the words of your thoughts will trigger associations that make you think about other things. When I thought how sweet it is to feel my vacation stretching ahead of me, it made me think of the song "Sweeter as the Days Go By."



And when I thought about preparing the guest room for my visitors, it made me think of, "I go to prepare a room for you," which turns out not to be the exact quote:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. (John 14:1-4)

Just like I will be cleaning, laundering, making beds, fluffing pillows, all to make a welcome place for my beloved brother, nieces, and nephew, so Jesus is preparing a place for me in the Kingdom of God. Just like I am looking forward to their arrival, he is looking forward to mine. And just like I will drive to the airport to meet my dear family, so he will come to greet me. Will we hug each other like family members at the arrival gate in the airport?

At my uncle's funeral this week, my dad read this passage:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 13-18)

Glorious and mysterious.

Thinking about greetings on the other side makes me think of the song, "The Far Side Banks of Jordan."



The song is somewhat theologically incorrect because it's a song where an old person tells their spouse that the singer will wait at the gates of heaven or outside the walls of the new Jerusalem and not go into heaven until the other one arrives as well. But it's how we feel sometimes about the people we love on this earth, that we really can't imagine life without them, even in the new creation. It's as Dietrich Bonhoeffer told a little boy who was mourning for his dog, which had died, and asked if he would see his dog again:

“Look, God created human beings and also animals, and I’m sure he also loves animals. And I believe that with God it is such that all who loved each other on earth—genuinely loved each other— will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, though, we admittedly don’t know." (Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxas)