While being surrounded by my family, seeing my brothers for the first time since Easter since they were both abroad all summer, I had this profound desire to wrap them in my arms and never let them go (I almost envision it as a loving choke hold because it's that strong of a embrace). When I see my dear cousins lose their brother my heart breaks even imagining what that would feel like. I appreciate their honesty in stating how difficult it really is but also always proclaiming the hope that exists for Will and all of us in Jesus. My initial response to this tragedy is to move “home” and never let my family leave my sight. But here's the thing...we can't live life like that. Living at “home” and clinging to my family with the death grip is not my story and it’s not how God has called me to live. When we surrender our lives to Jesus we surrender all of us- our families included. My cousin Caroline, amidst tears, shared her wisdom with me on this. We can hold as tight to the things in this world that bring us security but we can’t stop the brokenness, sin, and death in this world. My family is what I love most in this world .They are incredible and I am so blessed. But they’re still not my home.
Yes, Iowa is a great state and it’s my “home”, and more importantly my family is “home” but those things will never fully satisfy and they are never guaranteed to exist. So what truly is home? It's Heaven. It's where my cousin Will is celebrating right now. It's where I can't wait to join him someday.
In Prodigal God Tim Keller talks about Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son who goes away to find a better life but he is disappointed and longs for home. In the book Tim Keller discusses how if we go back to where we call home we will always be disappointed. “The strong feelings that surround home reveal a deep longing within us for a place that absolutely fits and suits us, where we can find and be our more true selves. Yet there is no real place or family that satisfies these yearnings, yet many arouse them. Here on earth we are always traveling, never arriving. Home always evades us. We were created to live in the Garden of Eden and we don’t. We have been living in a world that’s not our home and we have become subject to disease and death. Though we need love that lasts, all our relationships are subject to the inevitable entropy of time and they crumble in our hands. We have a life-long nostalgia, a longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we’ve been cut off, to be on the inside of some door from which we’ve only seen from outside.”
Will is home. He won. Those of you who knew Will know how competitive he was with his Nichols blood. He beat us to the feast with Jesus and now he experiences true joy with no pain or hurt.
But why are we all hurting so much? Why do our hearts ache? Why are the tears unending? Why is it so hard to return to normal life? Why isn’t the world put on hold so we can mourn? Because we’re not all Home yet.
So what do we do? Just sit here and wait to get to our true Home? No, that’s not what we’re called to do and that’s not what Will did. Will led us well. He was not perfect but he loved his wife and family, worked hard and served others. And because of him others know their true Home and will join him there someday. I praise God that Will is welcomed Home and someday he will welcome all of us there if our lives are in God's hands.
So with heavy hearts we say "Happy 28th Birthday Will".
You, my beloved cousin, are Home.
"For the Christian, death is not the end of an adventure but a doorway from a world where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand."
Randy Alcorn, Heaven
*Rev 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain-for the old world has passed away.”*
I encourage everyone to look into the book Prodigal God by Tim Keller or Heaven by Randy Alcorn if you want more information on the Home I refer to. Also, feel free to message me with any questions or read my cousins blogs on their families mourning with Hope (http://nblo.gs/10js9k)
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