He knew something about growing up in a motherless home, and about the hole it left in a boy’s heart. He knew about the ceaseless drive to make oneself whole, and about the endless yearning.
DANIEL BROWN, The Boys in the Boat
I had a surprising emotional breakthrough the weekend my father died.
Like for many people, my relationship with my dad was kind of a mixed bag. My boyhood days were very precious. My father loved the outdoors, and we did a lot of camping and fishing together; I have golden memories of those days. But then the fall of man caught up with him: a series of lost jobs, followed by the drinking; then a stroke; then cancer; finally that brutal mocker, dementia. He spent his last days in a small convalescent facility in Southern California, then came home for hospice.
He died on Father’s Day weekend, of all sad things.
We’d been expecting it, living in those awful days of waiting that so often come at the end. Stasi and I had gone up to our cabin in the mountains; there is no phone service there, so I would drive the three miles down a dirt road to the highway, morning and evening to check in with my sister. On that Saturday morning when I reached cell service I saw there was a message; I decided to listen to it before calling her back. Sure enough—it was the call no one wants to get, explaining Dad had passed in the night.
I put the phone down and just sat in my truck in the early morning, waiting for the waves of grief, sorrow, and regret. So much had been lost; so much irrecoverable. The sun was just coming over the mountains, and the irrigation ditch was bubbling next to me like a brook; the meadowlarks called to one another across the lush hay fields. It was not a melancholy scene at all. As I gazed on the flowing water rippling over water grasses, I thought of a scene in The Silver Chair.
Toward the end of the story, the children sent to Narnia find themselves once again high on Aslan’s mountain. King Caspian has died, and even though they have left that sad scene back on the quay, the funeral music is still somehow playing around them:
They were walking beside the stream and the Lion went before them: and he became so beautiful, and the music so despairing, that Jill did not know which of them it was that filled her eyes with tears.
Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water weed. And all three stood and wept. Even the lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond. . . .
“Son of Adam,” said Aslan, “go into that thicket and pluck the thorn that you will find there and bring it to me.” Eustace obeyed. The thorn was a foot long and sharp as a rapier. “Drive it into my paw, son of Adam,” said Aslan, holding up his right fore-paw and spreading out the great pad toward Eustace. “Must I?” said Eustace. “Yes,” said Aslan.
Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion’s pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. At the same moment the doleful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to gray, and from gray to yellow, and got shorter and vanished all together; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leapt up and stood before them—a very young man. . . . And he rushed to Aslan and flung his arms as far as they would go round the huge neck; and he gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a lion.1
This moment is yours, as sure and certain as God himself. Sure as the renewal of heaven and earth. How else could we enjoy the fierce beauty of a renewed creation unless we, too, are renewed and made strong, stronger than we ever were here? How could we possibly play in the fields of a new earth or fulfill our roles in the kingdom of God unless we are, well—glorious?
FOREVER YOUNG
He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. (Psalm 103:4–5 THE MESSAGE)
Death is utterly swept away at the Great Restoration. And not only death, but every other form of sorrow, assault, illness, and harm we’ve ever known. You will be completely renewed—body, soul, and spirit. How do we even imagine this? Take it in small steps; think of some recovery you have experienced. A piercing headache can be debilitating; you know the sweet relief when it vanishes. Surely you have had some nasty flu, and you know what a joy it was to get your strength and appetite back. These little glimpses of our restoration are taking place all the time, hints of what is coming.
Stasi came into the kitchen this morning with her running shoes on. I looked up with a surprised expression on my face. “Where are you going?” I asked. “I’m going for my walk,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Tears filled my eyes; I have not heard those words in a very long time. Walking has not been the most natural thing in the world for her. Oh, it once was. But it has been exactly one year since Stasi went for a walk.
Last fall she had an injury, tore her labral muscle in her right hip. That muscle provides the primary internal stability in the hip socket, and with it gone, deep arthritic erosion was revealed underneath. For the next nine months Stasi lived in chronic pain, bone-rubbing-on-bone pain, the kind only narcotics relieve. She walked with a cane when she walked at all; but most days she was confined to a chair. She lost her daily morning prayer walk, her precious time where she brings her heart back to the heart of God, prays for all those she cares so deeply about. Her prayer walk is her primary act of restoration in a stressful life. Hip surgery came in June; a summer of slow recovery followed.
So when she happily sashayed out the front door pain-free, I really could have fallen on the floor and wept for relief and joy. Such a simple thing, really, but in this hurting world physical restoration can feel like getting your life back. As the English poet George Herbert yearned,
Oh that I once past changing were
Fast in thy paradise, where no flower can wither.2
Many people face far, far worse. I think of the woman I helped in the grocery store last week. She was only in her thirties, I’m guessing, but she was bent over in her wheelchair, tiny and frail. A veil of shame and disappointment had permanently shaped her countenance; you have seen that tragic mask, I’m sure. I helped her reach the egg salad on the shelf above, but my heart broke for her. This is her life? What do you say to the soldier horribly maimed by stepping on an IED? What restoration awaits the woman who, due to a series of complications after surgery, lost three of her limbs and must be turned in bed many times a day?
Thank God we have more than empathy to offer; we have the restoration of Jesus to point to as a solid, vivid demonstration of our coming renewal.
The broken body of Jesus was horribly torn apart by his torture and execution; I wince even to write of it. “He didn’t even look human—a ruined face, disfigured past recognition” (Isaiah 52:13 THE MESSAGE). But then, wonder of wonders, two mornings later he was completely renewed at his resurrection. Our Forerunner was physically restored and then some. Gone the thorn in his brow, gone the spear in his side, gone the nails in his hands. His body was beautiful and whole again. So great was his happiness he spent Easter in some very playful encounters with his friends.3
Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits . . .
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1–5)
Again—these promises are so beautiful our parched souls can hardly take them in, as the sunbaked earth can barely receive the thundershowers it so desperately needs. Just linger on this one promise for a moment—your loving Father will renew your youth. No one is old in his kingdom.
We are a golden retriever family; currently, we have two. Oban—our nine-year-old—is lying on the deck right now warming himself in the sunshine. He is, after all, sixty-three in dog years. With a raised eyebrow he is watching Maisie—our eighteen-month-old—who is into anything and everything in a matter of moments. Before I wrote this sentence she was chasing a bird; now she is digging a hole with earnest attention, fully convinced that if she digs hard enough she’ll get that gopher; she looks up for a moment, tongue out, nose and face covered with dirt, eyes bright and head cocked as if to say, Isn’t this fantastic?! A chipmunk races by, and she chases it with absolute joy, tail high like a flag; then it’s back to rummaging around in the bushes. Hey, look—here’s my ball! Wanna play?
When we hike she is always running past us, to the right and left, exploring. If we find water she is the first in; if it’s snow then she’ll slide down it on her back like a polar bear. Her joy is boundless; her enjoyment of everything is boundless. Because she is young. This will be our joy in the new earth, as we are made new.
Youth is what enables us to enjoy life. No, that’s not quite right; youthfulness is what enables us to find the wonder in everything. Vibrancy. Lighthearted, like you feel late into a long vacation. Hopeful, like a child on Christmas morning. The absence of all cynicism and resignation—not to mention all physical suffering.
I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glory. Whatever physical affliction you have known, whatever your limitations have been, everything old age will eventually strip you of—it will all be washed away. Your renewed body will be like the body of Jesus. We will burst forth into the new creation like children let out for summer break, running, somersaulting, cartwheeling into the meadows of the new earth. Running like the children, “without getting tired . . . faster and faster till it was more like flying than running, and even the Eagle overhead was going no faster than they.”
OUR INTERNAL RESTORATION
“‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4–5)
No more tears. No more pain. No more death. No longer any reason to mourn. At the renewal of all things, our hearts are going to be free from grief. The joy of this will far surpass our physical relief. Think of it—if God would offer today to remove from you just one of your greatest sources of internal pain, what would you ask him to remove?
And once it were gone, what would your joy be like?
Oh my goodness—I would be a happy maniac, dancing in my underwear like David before the ark,4 running about the neighborhood like Scrooge on Christmas morning, leaping housetop to housetop like the fiddler on the roof. And if all your brokenness were finally and completely healed, and all your sin removed from you as far as the east is from the west5—what will you no longer face? What will you finally be? How about your loved ones—what will they no longer wrestle with? What do they finally get to be?
We shall, finally and fully, be wholehearted—a wish so deep in my soul I can hardly speak it.
I was holding our new granddaughter the other night on my knees, such a tiny and fragile thing. And my heart was pierced for her because I know what hell this world can unleash on a tender heart. The human heart and soul are imbued with a remarkable resilience. But they are also very fragile, for we were made for the habitat of Eden and not the desolation of war in which we now live. When the promised Messiah is foretold in Isaiah, the center of his work is clearly named—he will come to heal all our inner brokenness:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1)
The Hebrew for “brokenhearted” is a conjunction of two words: leb, which is the heart, and shabar, a word that means “broken” or “to break, to rend violently.” Isaiah elsewhere uses shabar to describe dry branches that are broken into pieces, or statues that have fallen off their pedestals and shattered upon the ground. Shabar refers to a literal breaking, the shattering of the human heart. As if I had to explain this to you; a tender and compassionate look into your own soul will show you exactly what I am talking about.
A good deal of research is coming forth to confirm what Isaiah described thousands of years ago: human beings are actually a collection of shattered “pieces.” Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the leading experts in trauma research, discovered after decades of inquiry that every person carries within themselves a shattered personality. What we see in dramatic form in dissociative identity disorder (DID—what used to be called multiple personality disorder), we all know to some measure ourselves. “As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting . . . as experienced in DID represents only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life.” In other words, we are fragmented beings. “We all have parts. . . . Parts are not just feelings but distinct ways of being, with their own beliefs, agendas, and roles in the overall ecology of our lives.”6
You know the internal war this is describing.
It is the unhappiness and isolation of our inner parts that cause so much of the unrest, awkwardness, and sabotage in our lives. James describes the poor souls who are “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. . . . Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do” (1:6, 8). The Greek here for “double-minded” is dipsuchos, which is better translated “two-souled” or “split-souled.” Did you just feel that inner tremor? Something in you is responding to this even as you read it. We are all traumatized and fragmented; no one passes through this vale of tears without it.
And our Healer will make us whole again. The little boy or girl in you who has so long hidden in fear, the angry adolescent, the heartbroken man or woman—all of “you” will be brought home to you, a fully integrated human being. “At such a time, we will be fully integrated once again—body, mind, spirit, and soul—just as we were intended to live with God at the beginning of creation.”7
Think of it—to be wholehearted. To be filled with goodness from head to toe. To have an inner glory that matches the glory of your new body:
The LORD their God will save his people on that day
as a shepherd saves his flock.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
How attractive and beautiful they will be! (Zechariah 9:16–17)
“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Matthew 13:43)
Think of a girl six years old at her dance recital. Imagine she has just given a splendid performance and she knows her mommy and daddy and grandpa are there watching. As she steps forward to receive her ribbon, her face is shining. She is radiant because she is happy. Think of a bride on her wedding day, in the joy after the ceremony and well into the reception. During the dancing someone snaps a photo, and afterward when you see it you are in awe of her countenance; she was shining because she was in her glory, loved, chosen, celebrated. “She was shining tonight.”
And there is more.
You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. (Hebrews 12:22–23 NLT)
That phrase “the righteous ones . . . made perfect.” I can hardly speak. Finally, the totality of our being will be saturated only with goodness. Think of it—think of all that you’re not going to have to wrestle with anymore. The fear that has been your lifelong battle, the anger, the compulsions, the battles to forgive, that nasty root of resentment. No more internal civil wars; no doubt, no lust, no regret; no shame, no self-hatred, no gender confusion. What has plagued you these last many years? What has plagued you all your life? Your Healer will personally lift it from your shoulders.
What tender intimacy is foretold when we are promised that our loving Father will wipe every tear from our eyes personally—not only tears of sorrow, but all the tears of shame, guilt, and remorse. That moment alone will make the whole journey worth it.
Yet there is more. The armies of heaven ride in on white horses, dressed in white linen. It is a symbol of the righteousness that now radiates from their hearts, the center of their being. The radiance is character; it is goodness. You will be free, alive, whole, young, gorgeous, valiant.
Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own. (1 John 3:2–3 THE MESSAGE)
We will have the character, the internal holiness, of Jesus himself.
You will finally be everything you’ve ever longed to be. Not only that—it can never be taken from you again. “Eternal” life means life unending, life that never dims nor fades away. You will be in your glory to live as you were meant to live and take on the kingdom assignments God has for you. More on that in a moment. Let’s stay with our restoration here.
Have you ever imagined what you would be like if the Fall had never taken place? Have you wondered what an unbroken, unstained, glorious, true, unblemished version of you would be? No false self, no woundedness, nothing shaped by the broken, mad world? No? Me neither. It is almost incomprehensible.
But you are going to get to know that person really well.
SEEING OUR LOVED ONES RESTORED
And those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)
What will it be like to have everlasting joy crown us? To be “overtaken” with gladness and joy? There is certainly the joy of relief. People who survive accidents often break out in giddy laughter afterward, relief overtaking the fear of the event. But there is also the joy of anticipation, the joy that comes when you know the road has opened before you and life will now happen the way you’ve always wished it would. Both shall be ours, the relief, followed by the thrill of anticipation—probably in that order.
It may be a difficult thing for you to imagine, your soul’s complete restoration. But perhaps we can get there when we think of the restoration of the ones we love. Think of the joy it will be to see your spouse, your dearest friend, your son or daughter no longer fighting their internal battles. To see them young and well, alive and free, everything you knew they were! You always knew there was a radiance, a trueness, a shining greatness in there, though they never could quite take hold of it for themselves. And you see it. How many times over will we hear at the feast, “Look at you! You’re glorious!”?
Stasi and I have dreams now and then about our parents long departed. But in the dream we forget that they died years ago, and our reaction in the dream is, “Where have you been? It’s been so long!” I stood at the window of Craig’s office yesterday, looking at the boxes that remained, and wondered, Where did you go? I know where he is, but the heart has such a hard time with death (there’s our longing for the kingdom again). Poet Stanley Kunitz asks, “How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?”8 It is reconciled in great part as we behold with our own eyes the restoration of the ones we love. And it is reconciled through all the reunions that will take place.
Whom do you look forward to seeing again? We’re all going to be at the wedding feast, for we are each of us guests of honor at that banquet. We get Bilbo’s party. Put that on your bathroom mirror: We get Bilbo’s party! Just think of the joy in all the reunions that will take place! I want to be there when Patrick jumps into his mother’s and father’s arms. Oh, to see again the ones we have lost and know they can never be taken from us again. After the tears of joy and the very long embraces, all those moments when we simply step back and say, “Let me look at you! My, how you’ve grown!”
After that . . . think of the storytelling!
Elie Wiesel said God created man because he loves stories. There will be so many stories to tell. “Where have you been?” “What were you doing?” All the questions that will finally have answers: “What actually happened when your lines were overrun by the enemy? It’s wonderful to see you again, but I need to hear the rest of the story!” “Did you hear your daughter grew up to be a famous surgeon? Of course you did—you were probably involved in helping her pass her exams.” And one question that particularly haunts me, for I know how much shrouds even the best relationship: “Did you know how much I loved you?”
I think the tales we get to both hear and tell at the party-over-the-water is also why we shall be “feasted.” There’s a lovely picture of this toward the end of the Narnian tale The Horse and His Boy:
A grand feast [was] held that evening on the lawn before the castle, with dozens of lanterns to help the moonlight. And the wine flowed and tales were told and jokes were cracked, and then silence was made [for the telling of important tales]. Bree . . . told the story of the fight of Zalindreh. And Lucy told again . . . the tale of the Wardrobe and how she and King Edmund and Queen Susan and Peter the High King had first come into Narnia.9
Think of it—a hush comes over the wedding feast as certain guests are called forward to tell the Great Stories. Moses recounts the flight from Egypt and the parting of the sea. David comes forth to reenact his battle with Goliath. Mary steps forward (will she be clothed with the sun?) and tells stories from the hidden days of Jesus’ boyhood. A murmur of excitement ripples through the crowd as Adam and Eve step forward and rather bashfully tell the story of naming the animals (they had a few disagreements that had to be sorted out over the hedgehog and the narwhal).
And no one will grow tired, no one will need to head off to bed. For we will be young, and whole, and filled with Life.
WONDER AND OUR HEALING
God heals the earth, and he heals us. We are restored to one another. The earth waits for our healing, and we wait for the earth’s healing. I believe our healing brings about something of the healing of the earth (more on this in chapter 8), and I’m certain the healed earth helps to usher in our healing.
Our Enemy is the Great Divider. His most poisonous work takes place at the level of fragmentation, dividing families, churches, and fomenting racial hatred. He uses pain and suffering to create deep divisions within our own beings. You see his work right there, in the beginning of our tragic story, when he slithers into Eden to divide humanity from God, from one another, and from the earth. He traumatizes human beings, then separates them from the earth that could bring about their healing. In his highly researched book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv10 documents how postmodern human beings suffer badly the physical and mental harms of “nature deficit disorder.” Our lives have become cut off from the Garden we were meant to flourish in.
Children actually need to play in the dirt to develop some of the friendly bacteria the human body needs. Evidence is mounting that many immune deficiency disorders are actually caused because we live in too sterile an environment. A short walk in the woods reduces your cortisol stress levels. Isn’t it sweet of God that sunshine gives us vitamin D; people always say how sunshine makes them happy. It actually does. Patients with windows looking out on nature recover at far higher rates than those who have no view. Nature heals, dear ones; nature heals. God has ordained that in the new earth it is river water that brings us life and leaves that are used for our healing:
Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. (Revelation 22:1–2 NLT)
Think of the sensual experiences of a restored you in a restored world. What will the aromas be?
Perhaps you’ve walked through a pine forest on a warm day; if you get up close to the bark, especially on a ponderosa, it smells like butterscotch. My grandmother used to put butterscotch on our ice cream. Can you imagine a whole forest filled with it? I remember the orange groves in Southern California in bloom—such a sweet and lovely scent. I expect the orchards near the city of God will wash the feast in lovely fragrances. My grandfather’s ranch was situated in a valley where some folks grew fields of mint; the smell when they harvested was glorious, the whole valley smelled of mojitos or Christmas. We now understand more how fragrances actually affect the brain and facilitate healing. The aromas of the new earth will bring our healing too.
And what about the sounds of the new Eden? Even now the music of rushing water soothes my soul; I love to sit by babbling brooks, fall asleep to the sound of ocean waves. Just last night two owls were hooting back and forth to each other in our woods; it made my tired soul lighter somehow. We will hear nature in full chorus. It will mingle with the laughter and music and aromas of the feast itself, and we will wander in and out, drinking it all in, practically swimming in the healing powers of creation, feeling Life permeate every last corner of our being. Happiness and joy will overcome us; sorrow and its sighing will vanish forever.