A Dark And Quiet Room

I’ve started a new blog called The News from Orange Street. You are all welcome to check it out. I just ask that you begin here.

Some of you know what this is about. The rest of you…well, you can join in, too.

written on 6/28/2003

“Behold, we have left everything and followed You.”–Peter (Mark 10:28)

I had been planning to write this entry a couple of weeks ago. After all, June 14 is the one-year anniversary of our arrival in Peoria. It seemed like it would be a good time to pause and take stock of how things are going. But, one thing led to another and I didn’t get to it. Until now.

This week, my parents and Gabrielle visited us. Today, they left to return home. It hasn’t become any easier to say good-bye. Arianna was particularly upset, but Crystal and I weren’t doing much better. (The boys were unphazed, but I think that is a function of age, not gender.) It is still hard to see my parents get into their vehicle and drive away. It has been a year, but it is still so hard. So very hard. I miss them terribly. I want them to be nearby so that I can see them, so that I can go over and drink sangria with my mother, to get advice from my father, to see my sister’s crazy grin. But now I live so far away, and it is a hard day’s travel to see them. True, God has blessed us with email and a telephone, so we can still stay in touch, but it is not the same as seeing face to face.

In God’s providence, last night we read from Mark 10 for our family devotions. In that chapter, Jesus is talking about the cost of following Him, saying that it is so hard for the wealthy to follow Him. And then Peter says to Jesus, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Now, I do not know what was going on inside his head, but I can guess. Peter had left his business, his home, and his family to follow Jesus in His wanderings. The other disciples had done similarly. And Jesus holds out comfort to His weary followers: “â€?Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and the gospel’s sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:30)

This has been a comfort to me, and as I consider my life, it is true. I have left my brother and sisters, but now I have the Lansberrys and Dringenbergs and Evans. I have left my house, but now I live in a larger home than I have ever owned. I have Christian brothers and sisters at work who dearly love me. My entire life is able to be devoted to ministry to other Christians. What Jesus has taken away with one hand, He has given back with the other.

In a lot of ways, as my family was here for this week, they lived this life. They got to see where I live, and the people with whom I live it. And so, as he was leaving, my father reminded me that God is doing good things here through my family. He could see how God was blessing us here, and he wanted to help me to remember. And he was right.

But still it is hard. As my mother said as she was leaving, “Hellos are easier.”

I recently had the privilege of hearing Michael Card perform. In his short musical set, he performed several new compositions, one of which was actually based on the Mark 10 passage. But the one that forced itself on me the most was a piece that Card was not even sure that he wanted to keep. I wish that I could remember the lyrics, but I can’t. All I remember was a sense of the death of deeply-held dreams and the parting of close family as time rushes forward to a long-dreaded time of parting. I almost started to cry. Because that is still what I feel. I still feel the loss of the dreams that my family had. Once we thought that we would home-school together, that our children would grow up with their cousins, that we would regularly gather around the table together, four generations spanning the decades. Now, our parties here are small, and I feel the lack of family. Even while my family was here, I kept looking for someone else, thinking that we were just one person short, that someone was missing.

Today I held my crying daughter as my parents left. But today I reminded her of our glorious hope, even if it was through my own tears. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4) And I told her, “Arianna, one day Jesus is going to call for you. And He will take you away with Him, and we will not cry anymore.” On that day, all the believers from every time and place will gather together before the throne of Jesus, and we will never, ever, ever leave. We will be with Jesus forever. We will be with each other forever. There will never be another tear-stained parting of the way. For there will never be a need.

Maranatha. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.