Looking Forward And Back

Looking Forward And Back

Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness. Isaiah 51:11

I used to look forward to summers in South Georgia, when I would play with my cousins and help with the watermelon harvest. But after my friends were murdered there, everything about the place seemed to have changed. The landscape wasn’t as green or as vibrant as I remembered; it seemed flat and gray. No longer did the aroma of ripe watermelons linger in the air; now all I could smell was the stench from the paper mill. As the town grappled with what had happened in their community, it seemed the void was filled with only pain and grief.

I had changed as well. I was no longer the innocent boy who had jumped down eagerly from the watermelon truck each noonday, hungry for lunch after a morning in the fields. I had lost my appetite, and time seemed to have slowed under the hot afternoon sun. Even back home in Alabama, everything seemed different. We were all struggling with if, and how, life would ever seem normal again.

For me, it wasn’t until the Lord drew back the curtain and gave me a glimpse of heaven—thereby unlocking the gates of hell I’d been living behind—that my joy was restored and I was able to move into a renewed life with him.

The next summer when I visited South Georgia, it was still just as hot as I remembered. But this time the lilacs and roses were in full bloom. The colors and the scents of heaven were everywhere. Sorrow and mourning had given way to renewed hope and vision.

As today’s verse promises, our suffering is only temporary, when seen from an eternal perspective. The leaves of grief will turn after the season is over. Though the memories will last, we will have a renewed life filled with joy and gladness.

TODAY’S RX

On those dark stretches along the road of life, keep pressing forward. Our forever home is just around the bend, and our heavenly Father awaits with open arms.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Lord, and I struggle to keep on hoping. Please pursue me in these moments and penetrate the fog that I’m wandering through. I know you are there.