In three days, Linda and I will have been married for fifty-nine years. Recently, a new appreciation of this milestone has captured my attention. It cannot be understood apart from Jesus’ clearly drawn distinction between two opposing realities: The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness (John 10:10 TLB). From the very beginning of our marriage, Linda and I had a choice: We could yield to Satan’s purpose and live a spiritually impoverished existence, or we could yield to Christ’s purpose and enjoy life in all its fullness. We chose life! In the past two years, I have painted a picture of what such a marriage looks like. On Wednesday, Linda and I will not be celebrating the absence of heartache, pain, discomfort, and sorrow. Rather, we will celebrate that God’s grace has enabled us to be overcomers regardless of the difficulties.
Centrality of the Resurrection
Across the religious spectrum, Jesus is extolled as a great moral leader, model of integrity, epitome of a self- actualizing person, and even a prophet. However, the single thing that sets Him apart from the founders of all other religions is pivotal: He arose from the dead! Alzheimer’s has slowly robbed Linda of her memory, destroyed her capacity for reasoning, eroded her sparkling personality, and reduced her running skills to a shuffling walk. Nevertheless, through it all, we have kept alive the truth that our present life is miniscule when compared to eternity. The Apostle Paul, who was well acquainted with hardships and suffering, brilliantly established the guidelines for understanding how Christ’s resurrection guarantees our victory far beyond this present life:
If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries (1 Corinthians 15:19-20 MSG).
Certainty of Our Transformation
In the early years of my walk with God, l fell for the fallacy that a person could become so heavenly minded that they were of no earthly good. Thankfully, the pseudo intellectualism of my youth was crushed under the weight of God’s eternal design and purpose:
… there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him (Philippians 3:20-21 MSG).
The picture accompanying today’s blog was taken at our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Our children honored us with a family gathering at the Walden Club in Chattanooga. It was a wonderful night that provided respite in the face of an advancing storm. Considering looks only, I am amazed at the effects of aging over the course of nine short years. Add in physical capabilities and the gap widens even more. However, Paul’s message to the Philippian church renders both issues of little importance in light of eternity. When Christ returns, He will transform our earthly bodies into glorious bodies like His own.
Wonders of Heaven
After the death of our young son, Jeffrey, Linda and I sought to better understand his new home and questioned how he was acclimating to his new existence. Almost all of our thoughts flowed out of an adult vision of Heaven. Years later, influenced by the fertile imaginations of Ted Dekker and Bill Bright in Blessed Child, we began to conceptualize Heaven as seen through the eyes of a child. A place where our five senses, freed from the sinful entrapments of earth and enhanced by the reality of living in a glorified body, would be able to experience in heretofore unimaginable ways the joy of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching the eternal home which God has prepared for His children.
As Linda progresses deeper into the unknown perils of Alzheimer’s, I work to keep the wonders of Heaven always before her. Up until a few months ago, each day I played a game with her which she greatly enjoyed. I asked, “Do you know what I am going to do when I get to Heaven?” She always responded as if I were asking it for the first time, “What?” With animation and great fanfare, I answered, “I am going to find you, take you by the hand, and like little children, we are going to laugh and dance all over Heaven!” The sounds of laughter and the expression of delight on her face created within me a desire to repeat the process the next day. When the fog lifts, I still do!
Ron Harvard Ministries 