Yesterday's Blessings

Last night I went with Beverly to a dinner at which Bill Doherty spoke. He is one of my favorites at this conference -- just sharing such practical advice. Last night he spoke about things to teach your kids about marriage.
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I began reading The Shack yesterday afternoon. I am sure I will finish it today. I couldn't put it down once I started. The issue around which the plot builds deals with my greatest fear when my kids were home: The abduction and murder of a six year old girl.
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I also finished Yancey's Disappointment with God yesterday. For me, it was one of the best read's ever. As I have said before, I think he and I share such a common journey. I wore out a highlighter on this one.

Here are some snippets from the last chapter:

We are given few details about the future world, only a promise that God will prove himself trustworthy . . . J. R.Tolkien invented a new word for this good news: it will be a "euchatastrophe"

Few people who are trapped in pain, or in a broken home, or in economic misery, or in fear -- for all those people, for all of us, heaven promises a time, far longer and more substantial than the time we spent on earth, of health and wholeness and pleasure and peace. If we do not believe that, then, as Paul plainly stated, there's little reason to believe at all. Without that hope, there is no hope.

The Bible never belittles human disappointment . . . but it does add one key word: temporary. What we feel now, we will not always feel. Our disappointment is itself a sign, an aching, a hunger for something better. And faith is, in the end, a kind of homesickness -- for a home we have never visited but have never once stopped longing for.

I wish I had come across the above before I did my series on Heaven. Finally Yancey quotes T. S. Eliot,

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.