Faith Sees the Unseen

This Christmas season has been full of diverse events, both joyous and melancholy, full of surprises and sickness, lots of life and a reminder of the reality of death. I’ve already written about some of the surprises!

The week before Christmas, Marta’s mother passed away after a massive stroke left her dehabilitated and finally led to her passing. Marta is Ismael’s wife, pastor of the church in Jesús María. Just two days ago we received news that dear friend Toño Munoz’s father Antonio also left this world after several months of serious health issues, organ failure, etc…  I spent a good part of Thursday evening into the wee hours of Friday with Toño and the Muñoz family. Then the whole family went with the Cottrills for another service.

So many lessons a funeral can teach us, reminding us of the fragile nature of this life and the eternal glory (or eternal horror as the case may be) that awaits us.

Romans 8:23 is, deep down, our ever-present if rarely spoken fairytale fantasy.  But unlike a childhood fable, this fantasy is destined to come true.  “We who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us His sons and set our whole being free.”  And set our whole being free.  Oh that the grey and the blue would be rolled back, would split apart, would dissolve and melt away.  Oh that we could see and experience what in our spirit we all know to be true, that heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace.  I want to see my Savior’s face.  Heaven is a wonderful place.  As C.S. Lewis writes, this feeling, this Christian dream is “the scent of a flower we have not yet found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

I often can see from our house the majesty of Popocatépetl, Mexico’s active, 17,000+ ft. snow-covered volcano. I can’t always see it, though, because it is often covered with clouds, or obscured by haze. But just because I cannot see it…
…doesn’t mean…
…it is not there.