NO MORE TEARS

NO MORE TEARS

A grandson is stillborn and the Light is hidden and my mind darkens.  Faith is tested.  Hope is tortured.  Love is twisted.  My heart, mind, and soul are in turmoil.  Questions rear up as serpents ready to strike and poison.  Doubts lurk in the darkness, ready to trip, to tumble me into the Abyss.  Anxiety strangles.  Pain cripples.  Sobs of loved ones heighten my fatherly instincts, ready to protect, to provide, to guide, to guard, … but I stand by, powerless, seemingly, to fulfill these urges of a father.

As Melanie and I travel home, after nearly a week of helping, holding, crying, caring – we listen to Bible CD’s on the car radio; and she stops me with a question, a doubt, a denial, a challenge – as James 5:13-15 is narrated. Questions embody, incarnate, enliven the pain.  And the conversation meanders to “no tears in heaven” – all the while, wondering HOW will it be different.  And, then, “… why not now?!”  Why is Satan loose NOW, not chained in the Abyss?!  And, could it possibly unravel again, coming apart at the seams in some future age?  I mean, will God take away the free-will to say “no”?  The angels rebelled once before?  Choice leaves open the possibility?  (The “theologian” in me is complicating my wife’s simple question.  Much of these footnotes in our conversation are reverberating only in my twisted mind!)

“… God has promised that there will be no more tears …” is the best answer I can suggest, however seemingly feeble?!  Yet, the promises of God are NOT “feeble”!  Somehow, it WILL be “Edenic”, forever and forever!  Gone will be the thorns that infest the ground.  Disease and Death will be with the Devil!  All of God’s children will be home with their Father.

1) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; 3) and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; 4) he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev.21:1-4)