[Originally published October 21, 2011]
Two days ago, we had a taste of what I imagine it's like to pass through the veil at the end of our lives. As I stood in the airport waiting to see our missionary man child come down the escalator inside the terminals, we waited with three other families whose sons were traveling with Grant: Elders Harris, Healey, and Peterson. Naturally, we were all instantly friends, because we were all there for the same purpose, to welcome valiant sons home. Then we caught that first glimpse of them, predictably near the end of the disembarkment, and suddenly, we weren't one big group. We were four individual groups, sacred family units, sharing a private, sweet moment of reunion. Suddenly, Grant wasn't the disembodied idea of Grant that he had become over the past two years. He was my Grant, our Grant, that sweet little boy, loping down that hallway towards us, a man home from his first big commission from the Lord.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and because of changed travel plans, the dear boy had essentially been up since Monday morning at 6:30 Buenos Aires time. He looked dazed and confusedly happy.
This must be what heaven will be like, welcoming each other after completing our life's missions. There will be people there to greet us and welcome us home again. It will be familiarly strange....and strangely familiar. Being together again with people we may have been separated from our entire mortality, it will surprise us that we remember and know grandparents and others whom we never met in this life.
You can't really say that it feels like he's never been gone, because the separation mattered so much. It was vital that Grant's first two decades of life be tithed for the Lord, and all four of us are different people because he served. I am so grateful for this son. It was joyful, yesterday, to watch him get up and study, make his bed (!), clean up after himself, ask every few minutes, "What do you need? What can I do for you?", thank me for the meals I've fixed him, allow me to chase him around the bar in the kitchen for hugs, the way I used to before he left.....only now, turn around suddenly and run right into my arms. I'm so grateful for children who grow up and still want to come home!
The apostle Paul calls followers of Christ "children of light." I am so grateful to have raised children who love light. Light is the way by which we see everything else. The Light, is what helps us discern truth - "things as they really are."
Comments