Little Pockets of Perfect
Life can be hard. Life can be pain
exhaustion
doubt
betrayal
mourning
disappointment
despair...
But life is not always this way. As you wade through a sin-soaked world, weary from battles big and small, every so often you find yourself a perfectly placed park bench. The sun shines a little warmer, the breeze blows a little gentler, and you are suddenly cocooned in a little pocket of perfect.
Sometimes that pocket is a moment of peace while you listen to eruptions of giggles from your children playing together without need of your intervention or even attention.
Sometimes it's the smile and look in your baby boy's eyes as he crawls toward you as quickly as his chubby little arms and legs can carry him, pressing his face tightly against yours when he arrives at you, his destination.
When the arms of your little girl wrap tightly around your neck and a sweet, sincere, "I love you. Snuggle me, mama?" escapes her precious lips, you have found yourself a pocket of perfect.
An embrace with a loved one, who, when you pull away, pulls you back in to hold on just a little longer.
A gust of wind on an autumn day sending a swirl of fall's most colorful leaves to wrap around you, clouds parting for the sun to shine perfectly on a long walk, your favorite song at the perfect time, a section of scripture that spoke exactly what you needed to hear, or even a moment of just feeling wonderful for no reason at all.
My heart has been swelling as I have encountered a long string of park benches lately. I've been suddenly enveloped in moments thinking, "Now this, this is what life is all about"!
As beautiful a thought as that is, to remain in that belief without realizing its error would be heartbreaking. The tragedy in failing to acknowledge the deeper and truer purpose in life would be the desolation of living without the hope of heaven.
As wonderful as this life can be, there is so much more than perfect pockets and park benches that awaits us.
1 Corinthians 2:7-9
No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him—
Our Savior humbled himself, lived perfectly, and died, not so that we could experience pockets of perfect, but an eternity of it!
When your husband wraps his arms around you, when your children are climbing, cuddling, kissing, when you find that oasis in life, that place that makes you feel that there is nowhere you would rather be, remember you are not home yet. When you are overcome with a sense of belonging, or if you are trapped in a place where you know you do not, take joy in the fact that it's going to get so much better.
Philippians 3:20-21
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
