THESE days I am no longer afraid of tears. I am not afraid to cry, and in fact, I find crying to be God’s touch in my life. I’m not worried about how I’ll look or how vulnerable I’ll appear. In any case, my tears bring glory to God.

Tears. I learned something about them a long time ago. The first time I faced a life-shaking grievance, more than a decade ago. I learned that tears took me to the very Presence of God in my grievance, because tears represented surrender.

Tears are a beacon of a heart’s longing for the impossible. And because the impossible cannot be done, there is surrender; tears.

Learning the consummate spiritual value of surrender is the greatest life lesson there has ever been.

Everything else is secondary; surrender leads directly or ultimately to acceptance.

Acceptance is very simply the meaning of life; mainly, the acceptance of the truth.

***

Tear Dice must realize how close they are to touching the sky every time they are touched.

I can look at a picture of my deceased son, Nathanael, and immediately be filled with rocking ocean waves. The image of him at his funeral with his mother, looking at his open, sad and broken coffin, such an image floods my mind not only with emotions of empathy for the eternal sadness of a life far from God in the body; it floods my heart with matters of emotion that I cannot comprehend.

It is a longing for eternity, in and of itself.

However, my time here is not over, and I have much to live for.

But now there has been a rethinking of life that is irrevocable. The things of this world no longer crave my attention as before. There is a certain resignation that this is not all there is.

To touch the sky is to change the earth. My land is changed. It changes for the better. It changes supremely.

As a matter of practice, I am drawn to remembering my son. Every time I do this, spend a special moment with him, next to a memory, God enters the space and communicates silently with us. Most of the time God communicates that he is there simply through the experience of something new.

Eternity in the living moment, here and now, is a sacred and eagerly silent space. I wonder if a better experience can be had on the whole earth. I do not think so.

***

I wonder what God had in mind when he unleashed the double blows on our son’s life. Surely it was not only because of our suffering. We count the blessings beyond our suffering for the loss of Nathanael. And there are so many that they make counting irrelevant.

Having suffered the loss of Nathanael, we have learned so many lessons that could not have been learned any other way.

Certain things in a life wrapped in eternity are unknowable. The acceptance of what cannot be understood is a bringer of peace in an otherwise exhausting life.

In a life wrapped in eternity, we have much more perspective on what life is and what it contains and what it can bring. We are so vulnerable. We only deceive ourselves if we do not want to be partakers of the heavenly gift.

***

And what about this heavenly gift? It is more unknown than anything. We only have human faculties for thought, ingenuity and creation. We offer what life is; its purpose and meaning. We can only apply. We cannot know it except by what we believe.

What is God teaching us in this grievance? What does God want us to learn from a life encounter that is only reconciled in heaven?

God is teaching us to have hope. Faith is the only way through. We are taught to expect a touch of the untouchable. We have learned that there is nothing like faith.

Faith will carry us on the wings of patience.

***

It is so difficult to look at someone that God gave us and who has now passed away.

God wants us to know that we have our loved ones for as long as he determines. The reasons why they take them away from us are unfathomable. There are many more reasons to be at peace with what we cannot understand than to criticize it.

We think only in terms of our bread. God’s perspective barely registers. God’s perspective oversees our pain. Contains our bread. But God’s perspective is absolutely voluminous.

The Christian worldview informs us in healthy ways about our suffering. We are honest about how the pain we endure makes us feel. We also believe in a hope beyond us in eternity.

***

Nathanael, sweet child,
Sweet little man we held,
God has you in glory
The emotions of eternity come to merge.
Nathanael, sweet child,
Little man, little son, little brother,
the joy of heaven,
Save your blessings for your mother.
Nathanael, sweet child,
Special in every eternal way,
sky Alloy,
Until we come to you on that Day.

© 2015 SJ Wickham.