head in my hands…

(a small bit life-giving beauty at my house. )

I sat at the table, facing my computer with my eyes sheltered, my forehead resting on my hands.  Perhaps, if I can’t see it, it isn’t true.   Friends – This is how my life has been going as of late.  I won’t lie that social media, and the speedy pace of all sorts of information wreaks havoc on my tender heart. Some days the best thing I can do is just PUT. IT. AWAY.

Bad news in politics.  Life altering situations for friends.  Frustration in my own personal life – It all piles up in seconds flat and I shut down.

Over the course of the summer my children and I have been listening thru the entire  Chronicles of Narnia. An all-time favorite for me, my heart becomes so wrapped up tightly in hope that I feel like I might burst when I hear what C.S. Lewis writes.  Truly, it is an anecdote for my plight.

Today, in the car, we finished the final book, “The Last Battle,” and I found myself thinking of all the parallels I find with our world today.  But one of the most beautiful things I heard, was at the very end, as Lewis uses the end of his story to describe eternity.

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion;  but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page:  now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read:  which goes on for ever:  in which every chapter is better than the one before.”  

Lewis’ words dug deep into the soft places of my heart and I realized something:  In comparison with what is in store, the beauty of eternity with our Savior and all that is to come (which is impossible for us to even fathom), all of this junk that paralyzes me – my frustrations and pain, the heart ache of friends, the sickness and tragedy all around –  it is a tiny little nothing.  It has complete insignificance in light of the coming goodness of eternity.

from 2Corinthians 4: 16-18- So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,  as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.   

When I think of that complete, unending joy, love, and peace that we will know forever, I’m undone and at the same time I’m rescued. Someday all these earthly heartaches that seemed to have checkered a lifetime, will seem like a simple moment.

With these thoughts, I feel as though He has lifted my head from my hands, and focused my eyes heavenward.  amen.

from Psalm 3:2-4  Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. Selah. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,  my glory, and the lifter of my head.  I cried aloud to the Lord,  and he answered me from his holy hill.