September 27, 2009

• It Was A Beautiful Night

  It was a beautiful night.
  
  The humidity dropped during the day.  The sun came out.  The wind picked up pace and scuttled clouds across the sky that were shadowed on the fields.  By the time we were heading towards sunset, the clouds had blown off to the southeast and the sky was clear.  The wind remained steady, however.  Not terribly strong, but steady.  Enough to make one glad for a sweatshirt.  The world is still ninety percent green, but it is an old green, September green, and yellows, browns, reds and oranges have already begun to creep in, even if few were visible tonight.
  
  The crickets were making music in full chorus about the clearing.  The wind was strong enough to keep the smoke blowing in an easterly direction, but not so strong as to carry away the symphony of the crickets, cicadas and tree frogs.  The waxing moon, now past half, became clearer by the moment in the southern sky.  A brilliant planet, Saturn, if I were guessing, but more probably Venus, was trajectoried in a perfect setting to its east, a diamond next to a platinum disc of purely reflected beams.
  
  The bonfire was crackling.  You could hear the laughter about it as first one hot dog, and then, another, and yet still another was burnt off its stick and fell into the flame.  The Little Mister happily filled the bottom of his stroller with pulled pieces of grass.  Chairs were moved closer, for warmth, and then back again, when satiated with heat, and then closer once more as the breeze refused to allow the temperature to stay at ‘cozy’ too far from the fire.
  
  As the blue of the sky grew deeper and the golden glow in the west faded to sunsets remembered, the chairs drew closer to the circle for good.  The Little Mister, after a brief protest, snuggled down to sleep in his father’s arms, cozily tucked in with his favorite blanket.  Hearts were opened.  Lives were shared…joys, celebrations of God’s faithfulness, and there were many, hurts, concerns, pleadings for wisdom…the threads that make up the fabrics of our lives were interwoven one hour further.
  
  And then, prayer.  Walking into the halls of Heaven, kneeling before the Throne of the King, falling before the feet of our Father…in praise.  In worship.  In petition.  In thanksgiving.  In supplication.  In confidence.  In trust.  Tears shed for the hurt of dear friends, for the ache that is ours while we linger on this sin-cursed planet, where the Valley of the Shadow of Death is given just a few more days to haunt our steps.  Tears for the piercing pleasure that we have in the Hope of the Resurrection, celebrated this Lord’s Day, and the hours we count down awaiting its final fulfillment, when the trumpet shall sound and the dead in Christ will rise and we will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
  
  Part of the beauty was in the crackling fire that began simmering its way to coals while we spent time at the Throne of Grace.  Part of the beauty was in the cool crispness of the air that made the fire that much more enjoyable.  Part of the beauty was in the moonlit starshine that punctuated the God-design of the crickets and wind and grasses and flame and trees and sky that all bespoke their Creator.
  
  But the real beauty, the beauty that I carried home with me, tucked away in my heart as a memory imprinted on my soul was the beauty of all that as merely the setting–the backdrop of loveliness that so well displayed the love of people for their God and for their family…the family that was there, and the family that was far, but made family, whatever the distance, not so much by thinly stretched human blood, but by a blood-stained, lonely, Roman Cross of execution and an empty Jewish Tomb of victory.
  
  Around the flickering light, we met as family, coming before our Father in prayer, not only for ourselves, but for the family that is away for now, but one Day will be by the fire, together, or perhaps underneath the Tree of Life, together, or perhaps splashing on the banks of the River of the Water of Life, Clear as Crystal, together, or perhaps exploring the gorgeousness of the jeweled foundations of the New Jerusalem, together.  The family that is bound by the ties of our Father, with love and thankfulness for His great mercies on our lives–for the forgiveness of sin and for so much more.  “I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it to the full.” John 10:10.
  
  I was given a glimpse of that life tonight around the fire with those I love and who love me.  It was beautiful.  It is a beautiful thing to love and to be loved and to belong to such a family.  Yet even that…wonderful as it was, was incomplete.  Imperfect.  Thinking about the fact that one we’ve long loved will any time now be in the presence of Life, Himself, before we get to be there, has me eagerly awaiting the time when the promise of the evening will be fully fulfilled.  Completely completed.  Life.  To the full.
  
  In the meantime…
  
  “So until the day the trumpet rings in my ear, bid me to come and I will follow.”
  
  “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoving, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord!” I Corinthians 15:58
  
  It was a beautiful night.

  • 10:21 pm
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