Meeting 'Those' People in Heaven
I recently found myself in a
conversation about heaven. Not the typical, “what would it be like”
kind of conversation. This was an issue I have thought on before at
length and the other person just really spoke my heart at that
moment. The thought was something like this: how will it feel in
heaven when we meet those people, the ones who have hurt us
the most or that we struggle to love? At first, the answers were a
little tongue in cheek. “Well, I guess it’ll be big enough for
the two of us,” or “maybe we won’t actually run into them!”
I admit this very question has
been on my mind for awhile though. Sometimes I find myself in
relationship with others that I just never seem able to get along
with no matter how hard I try. Everything I say and do seems to be
the wrong thing at the wrong time and I can feel completely dejected
and deeply pained at times. In the worst moments, I can have the
tendency to either use snappy words to protect what is left of my
fragile ego or to just shut down for awhile to regroup. Other times, something needed to be said, but I worry about the response. Ever been
there?
More and more, I find myself longing
for heaven for this very reason. Our relationship with God has been
broken ever since the fall of humans into sin and rebellion. We hide
ourselves from God and others out of shame of exposure and possibly
being asked to do more than we’d like or self-protection against
use by others. We have to erect some boundaries with others to
protect our time and our limited capacities, emotionally, physically
and spiritually. We do this because sin and death have entered the
world. The fullness of God’s presence in our lives has been broken
and we so easily look to things or people in creation to find that
missing piece within ourselves that only God can fill.
In heaven, this will not be so. We will
find that completion in our hearts that we so deeply long for on
earth. God’s presence will fill all of those empty places and needs
in a way not completely possible in our current fallen state. He will fully heal our shame and all the aspects of ourselves we tend to hide out of insecurity. With
that fullness, our egos will not get in the way of relating to one
another. We will not fear that others might try to use us or ask
too much or that we might do the same. We will not need to erect
boundaries to protect our limited selves or to protect us from
possible sin (either our own or that of others).
I know this sounds silly in light of
such a serious topic, but it is the little things that I think about
most. I admit, I am the world’s most awkward hugger and I am a big
lover of personal space. That said, I love hugs, but I will almost
never be the one to initiate them. Why? A lot of times, it is lack of
certainty of where I stand with others and
it safer to shake your hand. I’m pretty sure one of the first
things I am going to do in heaven is to bear hug every person I meet!
Right after I look them in the eye and tell them I love them more
than they could possibly know (the difficult ones in particular
here). I long for that freedom and joy to be made complete, when all wrongs are put right and we can truly see things as they are. Mostly, I want to be able to look at those people and
fully appreciate who they are and see all the goodness that God gave
them without that sneaky ego creeping in to mess it all up.
For now, I am trying to make peace with
my humanity and that of others. I am asking God for the grace to love
others with His love, to let me be an instrument of His grace and
mercy, and maybe taking a much needed walk in my weaker moments while
dreaming of that day when every tear will be wiped away.
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