heaven – Erin Ulerich

Restored Before the Face of God

Reconciliation means to restore before the face of God. This word is hitting me hard right now. Our family and community are grieving the tragic deaths of three of our students and friends. These dear friends are face-to-face with God, still serving the Lord they loved. Death touched their bodies, but could not separate them from God’s love.

The greatest rescue mission in the world didn’t end with the rescue. It marked the beginning of God’s ultimate plan for His beloved creation: Reconciliation.

Reconciliation means to restore before the face of God. We are rescued in order to be reconciled with God. We are reconciled so that we can experience what our hearts were created for- intimacy with Him.

Reconciliation flows from God’s heart. Throughout the Old Testament we see His desire to be in relationship with His people. Over and over He said, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Our salvation through Jesus makes the way so that we can follow Him, love Him, feel His love for us, and one day, come before Him face-to-face.

The word reconciliation is hitting me hard during this season. Our family and community are walking through grief following the tragic deaths of three of our students and friends. This sudden loss impacts the dorms they lived in, the church they worshipped in, and the school they attended. It impacts churches and communities around the world who knew and loved them.

This sudden loss creates a vacuum for all the plans they had for the future. Sharron, Aaron, and Joy Naik loved the Lord and wanted to serve Him with their lives.

And all those plans are gone.

Or are they?

God’s desire to be reconciled with His people was so great that He sent His Son to pay for their sins, so that we could be in relationship with Him.

If God’s heart desire is to bring us face-to-face with Him, does He long for His children to be with Him? Is that why Psalm 116:15 says Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints? The word used for precious can also be translated as valuable. Is the death of His saints of great value because it marks the completion of the work He began in them? Is it of great value because it means that they can finally experience life as He intended it to be?

The enemy cannot tempt Sharron, Aaron, and Joy any more, he cannot whisper lies into their ears. He cannot touch them at all because they are in God’s presence. They are fully at peace with God. And they are worshipping Him with a nature made whole and a heart set free.

They are still serving the God they loved. Even death could not bring that to an end. Is this what it means in 1 Corinthians when it says death is swallowed up in victory?

And what about us? The ones grieving this great loss on this side of heaven?

The work God began in you and me is not yet complete. Is it possible that their death is a part of the process of God working deep within our hearts? Is it possible that these events could unlock parts of our hearts that we have kept closed off to God? Is it possible that God could bring beauty and joy from this tragedy?

I believe it is.

Our three dear friends came to us from Hyderabad, India, a city of 6.81 million. They had to adjust to our small community in French Camp, Mississippi with a population of less than 200. And many of the cultural differences between the two places were confusing. Today they are in the culture they were made for, no need for adjusting, no culture shock, because they are finally home.

We Can Trust Him, Because of Who He Is

Life is hard to figure out.

In a session at a recent writing conference, Kaylan Adair, editor at Candlewick Press, spoke on middle grade novels.She defined them as stories where the characters stick their foot into the adult world for the first time. They are on an exploratory mission and don’t plan to stay. In these stories, the character discovers that life is complex and complicated.

There are days when I wish I lived in the chapter before the beginning of a middle grade novel – where life is easy to understand.

In reality, we live in the midst of layers of life, where things are happening simultaneously around us, to us, and by us, while we try to make sense of it all. We tend to default to a formula where our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us.

Good things happening=God is good and happy with us. Bad things happening= God is bad, weak, or mad at us.

This formula looks simple and easy to follow. But life can’t be lived through a formula. Life is complex and complicated, a mix of joy and sorrow at any given moment.

God is constant and unchanging, and life around us swirls in chaos.

Instead of letting our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us, what would it look like if we let who God is and His love for us shape our definition of our life experiences? It’s more than playing around with words. The difference between these two is the difference between hope and despair. I’ve experienced it in my own life.

When I was in 8th grade my grandfather died of a heart attack. I had a vague notion of who God was but I had no idea that He was with me or that He loved me. I felt alone and my grief was dark and hopeless. That same year a friend from school committed suicide. Again, I swam in dark and hopeless grief.

Years later my grandmother passed away after a horrendous struggle with cancer. At this point I had a closer relationship with God. I struggled with her suffering. I pleaded with God to take away her pain. I yelled at God and wrestled with the complex truth that He loved her and He was allowing her to suffer. But it was not dark and hopeless because who God is was my filter. My grandmother was his precious child. He loved her even more than I did. He was getting her heart and soul ready to spend eternity with Him and He would not let her suffer one second longer than necessary to accomplish that.

If I had interpreted who God is through this difficult circumstance, the logical conclusion would have been that God was either helpless or too cruel to alleviate her pain. However, the truth is that God’s greatest desire for my grandmother was for her to know Him and He loved her enough to do whatever was necessary to accomplish that purpose.

What made the difference in these two reactions?

Trust.

I filtered my sorrow, my anger, my frustration through the filter of who God is. I searched His Word to find out about His steadfast love, His faithfulness, His being with His people. And I clung to who He is as we walked through this battlefield of cancer.

The more I know Him, the more I trust His steady, constant Hand in the midst of the constantly changing circumstances swirling around me.

If your eyes are on the storm
You’ll wonder if I love you still
But if your eyes are on the cross
You’ll know I always have and I always will – Casting Crowns, Just Be Held

Picture by Angela Ewing — *Photo by Angela Ewing*

Knowing We Are Loved Makes Our Hearts Sing

This song makes me think of my grandmother and her battle with cancer. Mammie was a strong woman, but she suffered as the cancer spread through her body. We pleaded with God to spare her, to stop the pain. But He didn’t until the very end, when she finally stood before Him in heaven.

Mammie was a child of God. She was His. And He allowed her to suffer. I wrestled with this truth. And, for me, it finally came down to the truth that I know God loved my Mammie even more than I did. He was getting her heart and soul ready to spend eternity with Him and He would not let her suffer one second longer than necessary to accomplish that.

I don’t know what is involved in getting someone ready to go from this world into heaven. I can imagine that our grasp on this world is tighter than it needs to be.

I know that Mammie is singing with the angels and the saints around the throne, cancer-free and full of joy. And she’s not thinking of those last months on earth. At all. She was loved by the King then and she is loved by Him now.