pondering

C.S. Lewis ponders the concept/reality of longing in many of his works. We long for that which we were made to know.
We long for a perfect weedless garden because so long ago we lost one.
We long for a home that is spacious and welcoming and neat and whole because there is one promised for us in heaven.
We long for that perfect meal because some day we will be served that meal by God Himself.
We long for the eternal. We are uncomfortable with time (Oh! Is it that time already? Oh! Has it been that long? Oh! Where has time gone? My, how time flies.) because we were made to be eternal.
We long for heaven because we were made to walk and talk with God in the cool of the evening.
We long for our family gone to heaven before us because relationships were not intended to be broken by death.
The already/not yet tension of longing pulls at us all the time, pulling us to eternal truths.

Some of these longings are accompanied by grief.
I am learning that grief is not morose. Lewis wrote a wonderful essay - Meditations in a Tool Shed. It has to do with observing a thing and then entering into the experience of the thing. Both are valid exercises and we do both all the time, but to do them consciously and intentionally changes the doing of them. Observing a beam of light (in the tool shed), watching dust dance in the light and seeing how that light brightens the room - we ponder the source of the light without seeing it - but then putting our faces into the beam, feeling its warmth and following the beam up to the sun allows us to be part of the light and connected to the source of the light. There are two different ways to experience the beam of light.
We can observe our grief in a clinical way which allows us to analyze it, see its affects, consider it for what it is. Or, we can enter our grief in a personal, reflective, healing way and be drawn to the One in Whom grief and healing meet. Both are good. Each needs the other.

Grief, longing, hope. I am learning about these.
It is the Lord's Day today. I lay these all before Him and worship Him for working all things for good.