Reverse Solar Eclipse

This past week has been one of freakish circumstances and what seems to be unreasonable pain. Circumstances that didn't happen to me directly but somehow managed to affect me deeply. And physical pain that seems to come out of nowhere(difficult to accept for those of us who want black and white answers to everything.)

Monday was a weird day that shook us but left us seemingly ok. Monday night I came home from Cheddars and the movie theater with Connor, Grammie, and Lauren. The movie was great. But one little word sparked an angry burst from me that was alarming. What, I'm angry? Why? What? I'm pretty much heart broken? What? I can't sleep because everytime I lay my head on the pillow a new breaker of tears washes over me?

I've asked a lot of questions about why bad things happen, why God seems to let evil go on, why there is so much brokenness. But that night was not a night for those questions. I can't say I have specific answers, but I don't feel like I'm struggling to mount a beach ball in a surging ocean any more. I don't feel like everything is going to slip out from under me. I don't feel the need to ask "why" right now.

What I did feel was a deep pain for the brokenness that is, and the brokenness that will be until Jesus comes back. And now my question was, How? How, God, can we deal with this pain? How am I, looking from the outskirts, supposed to deal with it, and how in this breaking deluge are the people in the middle of the circumstances supposed to survive? I can't even hold up physically. I'm nothing but a stick of drift wood, God. How can people live in this hellhole we call a world and still smile, and laugh, and play?

It all sounds pretty miserable and Job-ish. But in the middle of this I read Malachi, and in chapter four, this verse suddenly changed me.

"And the sun of righteosness will rise with healing in His wings."

You know the verse in the gospels where Jesus says that His followers must hate their mothers and fathers in comparison to their love for Him? I know that Jesus loved every person and told us to follow suit, so obviously He means that we deeply love our families. But if we have to choose between family and Jesus, there isn't even a question...we pick Jesus.

He is so full of love that He cares deeply about family relationships, while our relationship with Him is so vast and deep that it entirely eclipses the love we have for our families. It's hard to believe.

Basically, from what I can see, God's people are going to experience a complete reverse solar eclipse of several thousand years worth of pain and sorrow. Jesus, blotting out the darkness...with light!

For just a moment, when I read the verse about Jesus healing His people, I could glimpse what Paul meant when he said "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory to be revealed to us." (Romans 8:18)

If Revelations speaks truly that "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17) then we aren't going to be weeping in heaven for all the things that happened on earth. He will make all things new, and the joy we have with Him will be so vast it will completely eclipse anything painful we've ever experienced or witnessed.

No darkness will be able to enter the heavenly city. No gloom or depression. Nothing will be able to weigh us down. Our bodies will be free from the physical limitations of living in this fallen world. Free from sins that plague us. Free from the enemy's plots.

In a strange way, the suffering here doesn't matter. Don't get freaked out. I don't mean that in a New Agey way. It's not that suffering doesn't exist. It's not that we pretend it's not a big deal. It's never, ever that we react indifferently or harshly about it. But compared to the joy that waits for us, it doesn't even mark the radar. Why else could Peter, who suffered intensely, even willingly for the sake of the gospel say,

"And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory..."
1 Peter 1:8

"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house there are dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:1-2

How could I ever sleep at night if not for this? How would I get up in the morning? How would I make it past the age of 20? Even in a fallen world, God is the lifter of my head, the prince of peace, the God of comfort, author of faith, merciful father, God of hope. He brings joy to my soul. Even now! He brings laughter and victory, even now! He fills my life with good things, even now.

All He asks is that I believe. All He asks is that I follow the footsteps of the men and women of faith, the Abrahams, the Marys, the Gideons. All that He asks is that I remember, day after day, the joy set before me, just like Jesus did.