Hope for today's work...and heaven ahead!

      From this just a few short days ago--

       To this early this morning--

      Felt mighty fragile yesterday as the joyous Christmas holidays truly left the building...the last of our out-of-town children still at home, Janie, headed back to college.  All the beloved Thanksgiving pilgrims and all the happy Christmas manger scenes have been packed away for another year, and it's truly back to reality.  Back to school.  Back to work. Back to schedules and routine.  Back to the start of yet another new year with all it's possibilities and challenges, it's joys and sorrows.
       Yep, our children are growing up and moving away, and clearly this is a part of the parenting program I find very unappealing, to say the least.  I want them all here with us...forever.  (Is that too much to ask?  Apparently so.)  I want no more change and flux.  I want no more partings and goodbyes.  I want Christmas Eve and Christmas Day joy and togetherness and feasting and laughter and sharing with those I love--every. single. day.
      What I really want is heaven.
       Thank You for reminding me, Lord!  It's as if all of it--all the wondrous joy of Thanksgiving and Christmas and being together with those we love and eating delicious meals with family and friends, all, all, all of it--is one loud, happy whisper, one teeny, tiny foretaste of all we have to joyfully anticipate in Your glorious coming Kingdom!  No more cancer.  No more tears.  No more separation.  No more misunderstandings.  No more hurt.  No more fear.  No more war.  No more hatred.  No more worry.  No more achy knees and backs.   No more tearful goodbyes.  No more routine. No more death.  No more selfishness.  No more sin.  Oh Lord Jesus, to be freed from all our sin--what an incomprehensibly wonderful joy that will be!
      Yes, we may cry a few tears this side of heaven, but oh can you imagine? Can you even begin to imagine the glories ahead of us?  So today, let's live to God's glory to the very fullest that we possibly can.  We have this one day--this one January 7th--to love Him with all our hearts, to enjoy Him, to obey Him, to reflect His glory, to share His love with others, and to love, love, love all those He has so graciously, so kindly put in our lives for this short, short season on planet earth.  Give us more love, Father.  Give us more love.
      Loved these words from God's mouth to us this morning.: "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us." (Ps.90:17)  Might we contemplate His beauty, His love, His grace, His forgiveness, His power, His infinite goodness this day.  God is an endless source of wonder, joy, and beauty! And as we do this, He will establish the work of our hands for us--the work we have today.  The work we have this new year.  The work He will enable us to do, by His grace and all for His glory.
      And as we work, we have heaven in our sights.  Oh happy, happy day--this day and that day.  Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord Jesus.
      To God be the glory.