I woke up this morning feeling quite positive, today is a new day and I wondered if I might even escape the ever present tears that have fallen so easily. It lasted less than an hour until I casually started reading the remembrance book that so many kind people wrote in yesterday. It really is so very hard looking at a picture of Jane looking so happy and then reading such nice tributes and remaining tear-free is not possible. And then all my children turned up, it’s great how they’re giving themselves to spending time back in their childhood home helping us all to grieve together. So there they were sat around the table at lunch-time laughing and talking as they always do and encouraging my youngest daughter to progress her wedding plans. And I just felt so sad thinking about Jane, remembering our own wedding and the fun we had on that special day… the video shown at the funeral was so evocative of the life we lived. Jane dressed in her white gown wearing a top hat belonging to a friend and dancing with this challenging man seeking to steal her away. In the unfolding drama I rescued my bride flooring him with a pretend fist fight. And I still can’t stop the tears. I feel really selfish now… I only ever wanted to grow old with this wonderful woman and she belongs to God, not me. I need to be and I am so completely grateful to him for the time we’ve had and for the life we’ve enjoyed together… and also the life yet to be enjoyed through eternity.
I don’t really know how to put this into words but last night the Lord touched my heart in a very specific and personal way. Today I am grief-stricken, quite naturally and it will pass of course. But the Lord gave me a glimpse, just a glimpse of how I will feel one day. For an hour or two it was as though she was there with me and we were talking quite normally… I know she wasn’t really there and I would not dream of trying to talk with her in this life ever again, I do not believe in communicating with the dead no matter who they are. But it was as though I were given a vision of how it might be after I too step into eternity to be with the Lord. We were simply discussing in a really matter of fact way the events of yesterday at the funeral. I may be wrong but I reckon that the saints who've gone before us into heaven may well be too engaged with that life to pay much attention to life back on earth. I was telling her all about it and it all felt so normal, indeed as normal as any conversation we’ve ever had. We even had a laugh about it. I believe God created Jane to be Jane, me to me and whoever to be whoever; and whether we be on earth in this life, in heaven awaiting Jesus’ return to earth or living in the new world to come we are who we are… perfected one day of course but essentially the same people. Jane’s smile is to be enjoyed for all eternity. My grumpiness will hopefully fade at least a little though!
But it felt real good knowing that one day the tears will ease and eventually be gone forever.
Revelation 21:1 ‘Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.’ (NKJV)
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