Home is Heaven

My uncle died unexpectedly last night. He was my dads older brother by two years. My uncle Roy had recently taken up running and had made a habit of running five miles every day after having run a marathon for the first time in his late fifties. He loved to travel and spoke French very well.  He played several instruments and this past year he went sky diving for the first time. He was a fun dude and will be missed immensely.  I have very fond memories of him playing with us as children and asking about our lives as adults. He was always up for a family game of football at the holidays and especially excited about any sort of political debate or religious discussion. 

When I learned the news of his passing I was by myself with Collins and Baylor and I began to cry. Collins was in the bath and kept asking what was wrong... I finally decided to tell him that uncle Roy had died. He looked empathetic but confused. "Right now?" He said. "Yes, baby," I replied. He asked all sorts of questions- some I knew how to answer and others I couldn't figure out why he was asking, but finally he said "where is his home?" And without thinking I simply said, "heaven. Heaven is his home and he's there tonight." 

After these emotional words rolled off my lips I was flooded with the stinging reminder of the brevity of life. It's but a vapor. It reminds me that this whole thing--all of life-- is just a temporary moment that we experience as a preview of the main attraction- eternity. Tonight I'm anxious to be home, but most days I forget where my real home is. I parent and love and live in the temporary. It takes unfortunate events to remind me of the eternal. 

“For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.”

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 MSG