"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:1-6, 8-10 ESV). "
Oh, Sandi...I most spontaneously (of course not by my own doing) read this passage perhaps an hour before your passing. How beautiful.
I don't fully know how to explain what is happening to me. I feel as though for the last 26 years I've lost what little realness of being I ever had, like I was an empty shell playing at life; not much besides a puppet jerked on a string. Simply put I was dead. Numb and grossly uncoordinated in spirit, which is the only thing that can really animate our bodies. I don't know that there was any way I would come to understand this if it wasn't for what I just saw. Oh, thank you Lord of All Creation! I can only continue to pray that you increase that which you have kindled inside this delicate vessel, through your servant Sandi. What a beautiful woman you made in her.
I have been tired of being of this world and of this flesh for some time, but had by those very forces upon my soul been unable to escape it. I don't think I'm fully away yet, and of course won't be until death, truly, but by God's gracious will I will get there and be able to find Real, True, Beautiful Life. A life where the body is filled with the Holy Spirit, connected to and contented by The Lord through our Savior. An existence that does not end at death but is instead freed by it to be fully alive! Alive and reunited with God! It's not heaven that matters of itself it's that that is where God is...beautiful, perfect God that is beyond human description and judgment.
This is something I think a lot of people considering Christians don't understand. When we talk about eternal life, it isn't about "avoiding death" and "living forever." It isn't that at all! It is about living with the most wonderful, perfect being one could ever imagine except that NO ONE can ever really imagine just how wonderful and perfect this being we long for is. It is about living away from all the corruption we see and abhor in the world, living with someONE so wonderful that HE is nothing but peace and love and glorious perfection so far away from the world we live in in these tainted bodies. I honestly don't know if we can understand what is meant in the bible by "eternal life" simply because it is so vastly different from anything we could possibly experience in the physical world.
I could go on and on now. I have so many thoughts and feelings that are both new and newly solid within my mind and being. Just when you think you've grasped something a new light is shined on it and you realize what you've actually been grasping is only straw and mud piled hurriedly into the shape of something solid.
Looking back at my life I see how much I was constantly being shaped by my physical bodily experiences. The chemical reactions in my brain that became my emotions were the only things that ruled my thoughts and responses to life. It's only now that I'm really starting to understand why the bible says we are not to trust our hearts in this way. Everything physical is limited by itself. To deny this is to deny anything beyond the physical. One cannot say spirituality is both a physical and non physical thing, no matter how much we want there to be a connection between the two it is simply not the way God made it...or well, perhaps the way sin has made it. I don't know what it was like before sin was born into the world. I do believe that even our bodies long for a connection that because of sin they cannot have, but it is perhaps felt far more often in our souls, which are at least not made up of such delicate, decaying material.
Oh how complicated this is to explain! Even now my squishy human brain twitches and shakes as I try and leave it out of the equation.
I understand the disconnect I have felt between my body and my soul a little better now. I don't know if I can ever fully process it, being still limited by the physical, which still tries to impose its own ideas about its essentiality in any form of thought or aliveness. But I know in my soul that that is a lie the body itself believes as truth because it has been cut off from the spiritual. The body longs for the spiritual without knowing what it is! Hence all these problems we have....
It makes me so sad (and I will admit, sadly frustrated, although I'm working on my patience) that so many of your creation do not seek you and remain like ostriches with their heads in the sand, wrapped up in their own fantastical, ego-driven pursuits, thinking the world and its potential pleasures are where real meaning is to be found when there is nothing there but a shadow of truth and meaning and pleasure. I wish I could just walk up to people and tell them exactly what they are missing and have them instantly understand and be consumed with the same passion and love Sandi had. But even Sandi couldn't do that, nor did she want to, because she submitted to you in every way. I still have so much arrogance, it sickens me whenever I become aware of just how self-consumed I am. Is it any wonder though, in a world such as the one we humans have created, where arrogance is so blithely excused as self esteem? There is of course a place for self esteem but it is not where our world places it. We find self esteem through our connection with the true SELF, the only SELF that is not merely dust....
But oh Lord, I know I am not even there myself. As much as I talk, they are only words. It is so hard to wake up from my sleep, my hard, cold and empty little bubble that contained my entire world prior to it being burst open through your Grace. I don't know how long it is going to take, I still feel so numb and so resistant to you. I don't know why...well, I do, sort of. I think it will take a while for all of my deadness to seep away. And it will take effort, an active seeking, and prayer, and simply remembering. How difficult that is, and how easy it is to find comfort in my old plastic womb of a life...it is so much more familiar to me, and the only natural way for my body and brain and heart.
"Search me, O God, and
know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous
way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting!"
~Psalm 139:23-24
Sigh, its all there. Truly this book contains the closest we have to total TRUTH, away from the blemishes and biases of corrupt human minds.
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