Till We Are Home

Gift giving must be on my mind. We are in the middle of several birthdays in our family. Last week was Isabel’s, and we have a couple more coming up. As I wrote about before, we exchanged Best Day gifts on Isabel’s birthday which proved yet again to be such a beautiful and sweet time. For the birthdays coming up, I’m trying to think through what gifts to give. Yesterday, though, another act of gift giving dawned on me. 

I finished reading To Gaze Upon God by Samuel G. Parkison about recovering the beatific vision. The beatific vision is essentially seeing and beholding God in His glory, like when Moses was in the cleft of the rock and God passed by him in Exodus 33:17-23, or when Christ was transfigured before the 3 apostles on the mountain in Matthew 17:1-8. Parkison does a nice job walking the reader through historic Christianity’s view of the beatific vision and how even a reformed Baptist can still enjoy and gain much from this vision.

Back to gift giving. Last night as I thought about what I read regarding the beatific vision, it occurred to me that my little one left us one last gift. When Isabel died, we thought about heaven more than we ever did previously. We searched the Scriptures for any mention of heaven. We found books that discussed heaven. We talked with others about all of this and how might heaven look. 

Over the course of time, our understanding of heaven and even this life deepened. We hold to a biblical view of heaven in that we understand heaven as being with the Lord. Yes, we will have resurrected bodies (Rom 8:22-24, Php 3:20-21). Yes, we will gather with the saints who go before us and come after us (1 Thess 4:13-18, Rev 19:6-9). But, truly, heaven is about finally being with our Lord and Savior (Jn 14:2-4, Rev 21:1-4). 

And, it’s not only just about being with the Lord…but, about beholding Him in His glory and enjoying Him inexhaustibly forever. As Parkison says, “(t)he beatific vision is the telos (the goal, the end) of humanity: the vision of God the saints will enjoy in the eschaton. The beatific vision is a vision of love, a participatory vision of God’s essence, in resurrected bodies, wherewith we will see the vision immediately and everywhere, particularly in the person of Christ, on account of our union with him.” (Parkison, 176) 

This beatific vision of seeing and beholding the glory of God, particularly in Christ, will be all we want in the age to come. Yes, we will enjoy so many other good gifts, but in particular we will enjoy our Christ. 

And this is the last gift my little one gave me. 

You see, with Isabel’s death, we scrambled for light as I’ve mentioned before. We desperately thought about the good to come in heaven, even thinking about what she may be doing and enjoying now. The Lord used all of this to give us a greater appetite for heaven…for Him. The Lord has been kind and gracious to guard us from wrong ways of thinking about heaven, and I’m thankful for the Lord’s help with that because it is a real temptation to want what you lose.

But I do think Isabel left us with a final gift in that as we miss her, wonder about her present reality, think of our reunion one day, and ponder the realities of heaven along the way, she has, in a sense, given us the gift of longing for our Christ more. The Lord has used our little girl’s death to give me a desire to know Him more, to behold His glory, and (in His time) to be at His side. For as Paul says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,” (Php 1:21-23).

So, until He calls me home, I will enjoy this last gift from my little girl and long for being with Christ while also walking with Him in faith and serving Him as best I can…

Till we are home…