8/14//2021

Today, I led the memorial service for a longtime friend of mine who spent his life in a wheel chair due to his premature birth causing Cerebral Palsy.  Over the years I have thought of what the moment would be like when he would wake up in Heaven and have the use of all his limbs.  Heaven will be a wonderful place for so many who were never able to live up to their human potential, because of the place they were born, their gender, or the lack of nurture from family and friends (this is a very short list of things that limit us).

At times, I have envied those who would be set free from their limitations.  If I were to brood (which I am capable), I can certainly mourn some situations and events that have limited me, but by and I large I am a part of large group of people who whose lives have been blessed and know that it is only by God’s Grace and no particular effort of my own.

As I envisioned my friend my whole in Heaven, God sort of whispered into my heart, “Gee, one day you will also be free from things that have crippled you!”  For a moment, I was reminded that the life, to which I aspire as a human being, is a pale shell of life in the Resurrection. 

1 Corinthians 13:12 New American Standard Bible 1995 12 For now we see in a mirror [a]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

It is certainly going to be painful for a moment, to enter Heaven and see the wheel chair and crutches on which I have depended to make me whole: Popularity, Security, Wealth, Accomplishments, conditional love…. just to name a few!

What a great day it will be to see genuine love, know true security in the presence of God the Father and my Savior Jesus Christ!

Father, Forgive my finite way of determining life.  Free me to live knowing that you are with me in my limitations (even those I can’t see)and one day I will truly see perfection!  In Jesus’ Name!