What Will Be

It's amazing how fast my old computer, keyboard, and mouse materialized. It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting here at my desk, gathering things up and bidding my electronics a sad farewell. Oh, how different things had been!

I walk around this familiar place. I know where to file things, I know where to find things. I know how to print, how to update databases, how to do...well, not quite everything, but close! It's like coming home again.

Even still, it's not the same. There are pieces missing: a few friends who no longer haunt the premises, a few details that aren't the same anymore, a few feelings and facts that have, for now, fled. It's wonderful to come home... But it isn't the same.

It's not that things changed. It's that they changed without me. 

It's not that different things belong here now. It's that the old things don't. 

Maybe I live in the past too much. 

But memories are some of my most precious possessions...

No, not everything changes. Some things stay the same. 

But there's still that sense of loss... something that once was, that no longer is. Something you treasured, loved, appreciated: it's just gone. Faded. Vapor.

I'm reminded of last night. The four of us girls gathered in the living room for worship: Haley and Jessica on the couch, Kezzia and I on the mini-couch. We each read a section out of Dave Fiedler's book, D'Sozo. He was talking about how angels--and unfallen worlds--look at us humans...

They see us as a risk. Is it safe to take once-sinful humans to Heaven, anyway? Sure, they say they've changed, but how do we know they won't do it again? 

But there's more than that.

How about the destruction of the wicked? How do we know that they might not have changed further down the path? Is God being arbitrary? 

And it's not just wicked humans we're dealing with either...

We're dealing with fallen angels.

In other words, we're dealing with the heavenly angels best friends. Best friends once upon a time, yes, but still...

That means that another question raised is, "Lord, can't You do anything to save our friends?"......

I don't forget those I've loved, no matter how far away or removed they may be from me. I imagine an angel isn't much different in that respect.

They've experienced horrendous, heart-breaking, shattering change. So much is so different now than it used to be. How many of them walk around the familiar grounds of Heaven and point: "Look! So-and-so and I used to meet there every day..." "Hey, remember when we used to...?" "Remember that song Lucifer wrote for our choir to sing...?" "Remember...?" 

They remember. They ache. They hurt. They miss.

...just like me.

Worse than me.

My change suddenly looks less.

Sure, it still leaves a hole. 

But I'm nowhere near as full of holes like that as those in heavenly realms. And even the angels change is minimal to the change God has experienced. 

Jesus was Divine in every sense. It changed: and He became human in every sense. And He didn't run from it: He embraced it.

Change? I think so.

Why embrace something like that? Why? Did Jesus look back from Gethsemane's gate and remember the beauty, the peace, the happy moments from Heaven? I assure you He did.

So why embrace the change?

Because He wasn't looking back... He was looking forward. 

Not at what once was, but what could be...

I'm convinced.

If the Creator of the universe can embrace change... 

So can I.

Oh, I still treasure my memories.

But it's time to embrace change and look not at what once was...

....but what will be.