Family and Other Thoughts

I spent the weekend with family--two of my sisters, one sister-in-law, and one niece. As I drove home, I was listening to Proverbs, and I kept hearing the same words over and over.

Wisdom, evil, righteous, wicked, folly, prudence

I realized that all of these applied to us, the women of the weekend, to our family as a whole, and to me--in differing degrees at differing times. What a blessing it is to see how we love each other through all of the folly, all of the wickedness, and all of the evil, in ourselves, and in the world. What a gift it is to me to know that the love I feel from and for my family is merely a shadow, a glimpse, of the love of our Savior for us.

Often I have to let go of simple fantasies of what could be in this world and remind myself that some day--Lord willing--we will eat, laugh, dance, and sing (to borrow images from Tim Keller)in the presence of One who loves us perfectly, and who does so in spite of ourselves. When I am able to let go of this world for brief moments of clarity, I realize that no matter how I think I am at home here, my true home waits for me, and it is so much more than what I could ever conjure or imagine on my own.