Full healing, heaven’s hope, one sweet day
On this cold, December day, winter’s chill nibbles my toes. Huddled beneath a down blanket, mug of hot coffee tucking warm in my hands, I look up.
Overhead, a star winks and twinkles, caught all a-tangle in the maple’s barren limbs. Out back just across the back 40, dawn’s breaking, light’s peaking, casting a full row of trees into stark silhouette. Above the fence, I can just see a dense line of clouds, pressing down on that glow, a scowl on the heavens’ dark face.
Just over the place where I sit, curled up tight, a feathery, airy line of tiny icicles festoon the edge of the roof. Angels, I think to myself, have come in the night, fingers knitting the finest of lace. It’s a silent, lovely witness to Maker’s presence, and my heart is peaceful and still.
In the quietness of dawn, my thoughts turn to another town, another place where they’re laying a mother to rest. As my eyes seek out the light, I am thinking…
This week, someone in our family circle received a call. Her mother’d been found, soul departed.
It was no secret that her mother had suffered. Had been crippled for years with mental illness.
What a thief. What a robber that stole a mind, stole a mother. And I’m looking at the still, spreading glow.
Sickness and disease of any kind take a toll. When someone’s unhealthy, it does steal. From us all, and not just the one who’s afflicted. The world’s fallen, life’s hard, and sometimes it stinks. There’s not a-one of us who’s gone unaffected. Not one.
But that light behind the trees is still pressing, slow growing.
This week as I was thinking about our loved one and her mother, I felt my heart quicken to this truth, that in heaven, everything will be healed and made whole. Broken hearts, broken bodies, broken minds. In heaven, it will all be set right.
What that means for our loved one is that one day, she will have her mother back; her mother as she was intended to be, her mother with a strong, restored mind.
It means that they will enjoy a completely healed, fully redeemed, utterly delightful relationship. Yes, that! God has promised to make everything new.
Sometimes, it just isn’t possible to have truly healthy, mutually gratifying relationships down here. It’s not, but we have the great hope of full healing one, sweet day. Until then, we can rest in sweet Papa’s provision, for He is far more than enough.
I look one more time to the light in the east. That rough keloid scar on the heavens’ morning face is smoothing, giving way to the sun. To the Son…
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To the Petersheim family, may you find consolation, even joy in heaven’s hope. Full healing, full knowing, perfect love.