Heaven is a world of love

        Just yesterday we received a very painful update from Caring Bridge.  One of my husband's good friends from college is now likely days away from leaving behind her cancer-ridden body and heading to glory.  I didn't know Ruth, but everything I've heard about her is remarkable.  I won't go into all the endless accolades that could be showered upon her except to include the most important one--she loves the Lord Jesus with all her heart.  So one day very soon, she will be seeing the Lord she loves so much face to face and enjoying wonders and joy beyond anything our finite little minds can ever begin to comprehend.
        But in thinking about Ruth, I was reminded of something I heard the other day from Tim Keller that has struck me powerfully.  In speaking of heaven, Keller said:
        "'Heaven is a world of love.'  That's Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon.  When your teenagers would say, 'I'm going out with my friends,' and I would say, 'Where to?'  And they would say, 'Well, we don't know.  Out.'  [By the way, every parents of teenagers in the world can relate to that]
        Do you know why they said that?  They said it because they didn't care where they were going, as long as they were with these friends.  And if you know how important love is, it is so much more important than what you do.  Who you do it with is much more important than what you're doing.
        So if heaven is a world of love, perfect love--absolute--and there's nothing more delightful than to feel love and to be giving love and to having it be answered...If you think about the two or three moments in your life in which you felt the most loved and the most delighted and the most blissful--the most over-the-top--and then you multiply that by three billion...than I'm starting to figure out 'Okay, this must be what heaven is like!'"
      Almost too profound for words.  I think right now of those moments of unparalleled bliss--and they all, all, all center around the loved ones I was with rather than the place or the activity or the whatever.
       Being in Dominican Republic with our children--

Yes, simply wonderful. Magnificently beautiful place...but it wouldn't have meant squat had we not been there all together.  In fact, our children laugh at how ridiculously often I say to them--whether sitting around the kitchen table or driving in the car or doing whatever--"Oh, it's so good to be here with you together."  It's my mantra now that our children are grown and mostly away from home.  And oh my, it is always so good to be with them.   
        Or Cane River.  Yes, yes, yes, we adore the astounding beauty of God's creation.  What a masterpiece God created when He made mountains!  But it's being there all together with our children and with my wonderful sisters and brothers--and telling the same old family stories around the battered old dining room table--that makes it supremely fabulous.
         Or Thanksgiving at Cousin Vicky's--
       

So. Much. Fun.  But still...it's the people, people!  The folks are what make it sublime!
         Or our trip to Chicago.  Janie loved it; we all loved it.  But that's the point--we loved it because we were together.

         Ha.  Take even an exercise class this morning.  Sure, we can exercise and cross if off the to-do list.  Or, we can experience just the slightest tiny foretaste of heaven in a sweaty exercise class because we're doing it with our buddies...complaining together.  Laughing together.

        There's nothing, nothing, nothing like the priceless, wondrous gift of love in our lives.  And love is not from from God or of God--though both of those are absolutely true.  Love IS God.  Love is who God is, and every moment of love we enjoy is both a gift and a teensy hint, a little foretaste of the perfect, infinite, wondrous love that permeates, fills, and overflows heaven.
         Today, this day the Lord has given you, is another opportunity to love--love Almighty God, the Author, Source, Enabler, Giver of love, and love the priceless, irreplaceable, eternal souls He has so generously placed in your life.  You or I may not have tomorrow to love them...so love today.  Rejoice in them today.  Pray for them today.  Remind them again today of how much you love them and what treasures they are in your life.
        And rejoice today that every single scintilla of love you've ever given, shared, experienced, and enjoyed is all just the most minuscule foretaste of what God has in store for us in heaven...because "Heaven is a world of love."  Oh praise God for such a future!
        Thank You, Father, for dear Ruth and for the priceless gift of her life and for all those whom she has loved and all those that love her.  Thank You for the glorious hope and promise that they will see her again.  Thank You most of all for our Savior, the Lord Jesus, who gave His life that we might one day experience such wondrous Life and Love in heaven forever and ever.  Help us this day and everyday to live lives of love, love, love.  All by Your grace and all for Your glory.
         To God be the glory.