Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Rest

We labor at the beginning, to enter. And we labor to leave. And, yes, we really, really labor in between.

She labored. No one would question that. As me, sometimes her labor was noble, sometimes ignoble. The noble does not perfect her anymore than the ignoble dooms her. This...this essential reality of our brokenness...is what I was struck by today.

I told her some things. Things that will remain between the two of us. And I remembered a picture of heaven that was recently painted so beautifully for me -- heaven as a grand and continuously redemptive round of storytelling. Stories woven as tapestries as we, God's children, labor at long last for something entirely and purely good. We will labor there to understand God's heart sometimes whispered and sometimes shouted between the lines of pain and joy and heartbreak and victory. We will do this for ourselves, and for each other, and with our Father always listening. He will weep with us, and rage with us, and rejoice with us. And it will be good.

We will labor, and we will finally reach the end of our labors, and we will rest. And that's the last thing I said to the frail and striking beauty today.

"Please get some rest."