The memory is vivid.
I was driving home that morning. I had just left a high school Bible Study and the man I would marry, though I didn’t know it then. I was returning to my mother. She was in her final days as her war with cancer raged and ravaged. I was going to be taking care of her as I had been for the previous months. It would be time for a sponge bath.
Her body had become so frail. I could see her bones. The physical softness of her embrace had been lost. It had been a comfort for so many years. Her coloring had become sallow. I can see it all like it were yesterday.
So as I rounded the corner to the final stretch of my drive home, I cried desperately. Pouring out my heart to God, I said ‘I can’t do this anymore! I don’t have the strength to see my mother become weaker and weaker!’
Almost instantly, in His great grace, he answered. He spoke from His word.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:16-18
Then he said, ‘Look into her eyes. See how I am making her ready for her eternal home.’
So I did.
That morning as I cared for my mother, I paused and looked into her eyes. Those beautiful deep set blue eyes. And I saw what I had not been able to see. They had become other worldly. Their depths were greater than I had ever beheld.
In His goodness, God had given me a portal to touch the unseen. He had given me a doorway to Heaven. He took the root of my faith and gave it many more. Magically, its tree grew more branches. The previous ones were thicker than before. He was rooting me in eternity, making me come alive to the unseen.
The truth is, we are no good for the spiritual life without our eyesight. If we are fixed on the seen, we are blind to God. Like the blind man begging on the side of the road, we need to cry out, ‘Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!’ We must plead for His touch upon us.
It is indeed a long road home. Yet, how different if our eternal eyes are growing sharper and sharper. How beautiful if we can see what is becoming as we approach Heaven. How glorious if we can behold Him more, begin to see the features of His face. How magnificent if we come to know the faces of our brothers and sisters. How extraordinary if we collectively live in the vision of the unseen.
Supposedly, there are the realists and the idealists. But the two become one wildly true thing when measured by the unseen. That which everyone sees is transformed into the dream–the perfect, unalterable, unfailing dream known as the outworking of redemption. It is here we are all called to live. And when we forget it, we are to remind one another.
That day, caring for my mother, I was changed. In the face of the most devastating physical weakness, I saw God. I saw His word as more than something stamped on flimsy paper. It was and is and ever will be realest of real, ideal of ideal, promise of promise, truth of truth, grace of grace, hope of hope. I felt like I could hold it in my hands. At the same time, I felt like I could jump into those eyes and fly straight to God.
Beloved, do you want the same? Have you been struggling with the things of this life which are overwhelming and threaten to choke out the life in your heart? Are you wondering if there is more than the pain?
Take up your courage. Wrap your hands around the lifeline of your faith. Cry out to God to show you the way. Be relentless in your pursuit until you can see what can only be seen because it is all true. God. Heaven. Our hope. Miracles. All things promised by our Loving Father. And when you can hold it all in your hands, raise those hands back up to God and be amazed as you truly see Him.
This song came to mind as I was writing this post:
