Debbie Gets It

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5, NIV)

For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5, MSG)

For some reason, I’ve really been missing my friend Debbie the last couple of days. Not that I don’t miss her other times, but lately it’s been a little closer to the surface. 

Might have been unexpectedly seeing this amazing picture of her on a friend’s Facebook page.

Might have been that things have been a little challenging at work lately, and that Debbie always had a way of helping me keep my head and remember why I come to the office. (Here’s a secret: it’s not just about the paycheck.) 

I counted on that, and I just don’t have it any more.

Or it might have been that I found myself wondering what it must be like for her now, walking on a beach that might just look a lot like this picture, basking in true sunlight, and already understanding something that I’ve been struggling to get my mind around lately: This life just ain’t what it’s all about. 

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You see, my friend went home to her Father about six months ago. So she’s in this amazing place where she knows what matters.

She knows that our lives here on earth have purpose and value, but she also knows that that they aren’t it.

They aren’t all.

They aren’t the end. 

Here just isn’t all we’re here for.

Debbie gets it. 

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Without having to wrestle it down, without even having to think about it, she just gets it. She understands. She knows.

She’s had more than the taste to whet her appetite.

She no longer just breathes in the intoxicating scents wafting in from the kitchens.

She is no longer close enough that she can almost taste it.

She is feasting at the table. 

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There’s just enough heaven in our hearts here on earth to make us yearn for it. 

But we’re conflicted.

There’s so much we want here. We start to settle down and grow roots and think that the “unfurnished shack” we call home here is what it’s all about.

We have to fight our own selves to keep looking to that day when He calls us home. 

Debbie doesn’t. Not any more.

Debbie gets it. 

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A friend and I shared yesterday about Debbie. She told me that she just wants to be able to call her and talk to her on the phone. She so deeply misses her dear friend.

“It is times like those,” she revealed, “that Heaven seems so far away.” 

It does seem far away sometimes. I think that may be why it affects me so much to think of my friend already there.

She’s pretty far away. And so that makes heaven pretty far away. 

But it also makes heaven that much closer.

If I can imagine Debbie walking along the shore there, and then I can believe it’s close enough to smell the sandy beach. To feel the breeze coming off the lake. 

The day is coming when it won’t be hard for me to get it either.

The day I’ll understand by virtue of just being there, not by thinking it out.

The day when I will fall to the ground in the manifest presence of my King. 

And in that moment, I will at long last hold, in unyielding grasp, comprehension of what is truly treasure. 

In that moment, I’ll get it.

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Meanwhile, I wait. 

And as Paul writes, I groan in anticipation of my heavenly dwelling. I groan as I struggle between here and there.

Debbie used to help me in that very struggle in my work.

When I would forget why I was there, she would remind me: It’s more about advancing the Kingdom than it is adjusting claims. 

Now, in her absence, she helps me yet again. Now she would remind me: It’s more about there than it is about here. (Maybe from her perspective she’d say that the other way around. )

However she would say it, she’d be saying that our unfurnished shacks are overrated.

Our fold-up tents aren’t so nifty as we think.

She’d be saying that she used get attached to them just like I do.

And I believe she’d be saying that she used to have a hard time really being able to get that too.

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But now? 

Now I know she’d be saying that she gets it.

Now and forevermore, Debbie gets it. 

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