Longing All the More

This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it

and established it~ the Lord is His name:

"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."
Jeremiah 33:2-3

My eyes are focused on heaven today. At the same time my mind and my hands are here to love and nurture those that God gave me to love and nurture. A gal commented to me the other day that we will eventually get over this period of grief where all we think about is heaven and being there ourselves one day. She assured me that I would live enjoying this world again. I'm not sure that I want to get back to that point. If that is the desired goal of grieving, just to live here, then I rather prefer to stay where I'm at.

The temptation to consider every day of the rest of my life nearly overtook me. From this perspective of the still fresh pain of grief, I was almost consumed in the pain of considering how to fight this fight every single day that I wake up here without Trent. I almost ran ahead, worrying about tomorrow, forgetting what God has already done in the past every single day that I have woke up without Trent here. God brought me back to here; to this very moment, to this taste of His grace, to this overwhelming peace. He assured me that it would be there then, too, but not until I got there and needed it.

I look around and watch others living, grieving, seeking God. I observe the similarities of how God works, as well as the diversity of it. God has narrowed my "window" down to the immediate: my family. He's closed me in, so to speak, and shown me the importance of these little souls. This is the "world" that He has called me to. Not to a foreign land; He has brought the foreign land to me. This is my mission field. If I fail here, I am no good "out there". When I am faithful here, He let's anything that's left overflow to touch lives. And He has blessed me in the overflow; I am daily praising Him for that overflow.

At times, my "window" opens a crack and I rejoice in the glimpses of the good works I see Him performing. For friends who encourage and pray, for lives that are touched when all I want to do is hide on my little goat farm, for grown men who repent, for teen-age girls He has allowed me to watch as He transforms their lives, for little hearts who are grieving, too, and the mother that cries out to Him to give her the grace and wisdom to keep on loving.

And then I long for heaven even more, and the day I will see clearly all of His good works.