Every day I wake up and I realise that it’s true. She really is not there anymore. The deep feeling of blackness seems to fill my heart. Then, one of the boys comes in and the day begins at 100mph in three different directions at the same time and I can almost forget the blackness. But it is always there, in the background.
I keep myself busy. I go to the gym. I go to the ski club. I start “projects” to distract me. I watch a lot of rubbish DVDs. I increase my collection of single malts. I decrease my collection of single malts.
But when I stop, it’s still there. Dragging me down. Sometimes I see a photo of her on my phone and I can’t breathe for a moment. Sometimes the boys do something that she’d have loved and the deep, deep sadness wells up in me.
She really is gone.
So many of my friends who are not Christians have been genuinely worried about my faith.
Sometimes I feel the same way, but, in the words of the disciples; “where else would we go?”
I guess this is where it hits the fan. This is the real test of faith. Do I really believe this stuff or was it just a good idea? Is this the real thing?
The resurrection is the central event of our faith. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then his life and his death meant nothing and we are just wasting our time.
What is the point in Him healing someone – all you are doing is delaying things?
What is the point in Him teaching about life under God’s rule, if all we get is a tiny, distorted glimpse of it?
What is the point in it all if all we get is 70 years? Or 40?
Unless Jesus rose from the dead.
Unless he defeated death on the cross and proved it by rising again.
Unless we have the hope of real life in the coming kingdom.
My wife is dead. I miss her more than I can even put into words. My heart is genuinely broken into a 1000 pieces. And I do not think that I will ever recover fully.
BUT, if this thing is true, then I am going to see her again. Right now, she is asleep. Jesus will return some day soon and when he does the dead in Christ will rise and we will live forever in the new heavens and the new earth.
So when do see her again it will be in the age to come when the kingdom is fully restored and there is no death and no pain and no suffering and no cancer.
For her, she went to sleep and will wake in what will seem to her to be an instant. She will not even have time to miss us. For us left behind, it is so much harder, but we will awake at the same time that she does.
So much of my grief is about what she is missing out on. But I think I have this wrong. As Duncan said at her funeral; ”she finished her race”. Job done. Mission accomplished. “Well done good and faithful servant”.
It is we who are missing out. Not her. We become so used to what we have around us that we think that this is the best it gets, but our best day here on earth will be nothing close to our worst day in the age to come.
So this is where it really hits the fan. Do we believe this? Really? Do we trust in him with all our being and so live my life by this reality?
Or is this just a fairy story with some nice people to hang out with along the way?
It suddenly makes it all really matter, doesn’t it?