Heaven Comes Down (yet again)

So, I’ve found myself out of the blog zone as our family went away on a much-needed vacation and, since my husband agreed to totally unplug from corporate during our trip, I said that I would unplug from writing anything at all. Upon our return just yesterday, my mind was filled with many meaningful moments that I felt compelled to write about and share. Something else happened today though that, at least for right now, trumped anything else that I feel like I should write/talk about with others. My husband and little girl and I did something that we’ve been trying to do for quite some time–we broke bread with the Highway Padre and his wife.

I learned a lot about the Padre. He is actually a former Chief of Police who did not go to seminary until he was nearly fifty years old and who did not ride his first motorcycle until he was around my age (early forties). He’s also a voracious reader, and he loves C.S. Lewis. (So, minus the whole law enforcement, seminary education and motorcycle thing, we actually have a lot in common!) The biggest things we have in common though are probably the fact that we have both battled cancer (and experienced many miracles within our respective journeys), and we both love God and believe God is good even when things down here seem not so good.

Today, when we pulled out of the restaurant parking lot after food and fellowship with the Padre, I began to cry-and I wasn’t exactly sure why. I felt myself missing my friend, even before he drove away. And when I got home, I realized that I too was missing Jane, my closest friend and confidant who was in the battle trenches with me. Yes, I’m realizing now that the unbreakable bond I felt with Jane I now feel with the Padre as well. There was very little health-related that either of us said that the other could not relate to somehow. Yet, the cancer, for both of us, was/is secondary to our faith in God. We’ve lived out our faith in and through the disease and, though there were times when cancer threatened to devour our whole bodies, our faith prevailed. And we both realize that this is not a reflection of either of us personally–it is a reflection of the awesome and powerful and worthy God into whose hands we have committed ourselves.

No, I didn’t want to leave the Padre’s side today. It’s hard to walk away from such a heavenly encounter and enter back into the daily grind of life down here. But, I must. And I know I must. There’s a desperate need for hope all around us–that’s one of the main points the Padre drove home for me today. He and I have that hope–the hope God sent his Christ to give us. And like any good thing, hope must be spread around in order to be truly tasted. It was never, ever meant for just a select few of us.

Through the Padre, I was filled once again today with the “real” hope of Heaven. We must do that for one another over and over again. It’s so hard down here. We need to continue to see Heaven come, if only in tiny, fleeting glimpses for now–cause a little bit of Heaven goes a really, really long way in this realm.