going home
There are times during Mass when i think about the fact that one day i won't have to wonder what God is like anymore. I won't have to pray toward someone i can't see with my eye or keep trying to imagine what it means to be completely known by Him in person, because eventually i will die and, God willing, actually see Him. Once i remember that, death becomes difficult to think about in the way everybody seems to expect me to.
If God told me somehow that my work here was finished and i was going to die tomorrow, i think the hardest part would be pretending that none of me was happy about it
St. Paul writes that "to live is Christ; and to die is gain,: and then says he has :a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." I understand that better now.
Sometimes people say things like "you have your whole life ahead of you" and i never know what i'm supposed to feel when i hear it. Fifty or sixty more years sounds like an enormous amount of time to spend waiting to see God. Obviously there are things i could do with those years and if He gives them to me then they belong to Him, so i'll use them, but i don't feel any particular need to reach an impressive age. There isn't a number i'm hoping for.
Maybe that's part of learning detachment too. i can love people without requiring them to keep me here forever, and i can enjoy being alive without treating another fifty or sixty years as something God owes me. Heaven isn't the unfortunate thing that happens after i've exhausted every possible day on earth. It's where i'm trying to go.
Sometimes i wonder what it will feel like when there is nothing between God and me anymore. No wondering whether He heard me, no trying to recognize His will, no getting distracted halfway through prayer, no being sick, no confusion in my own mind. Just finally being there.
I'm willing to wait because He decides how long the waiting lasts, but i also hope He doesn't make me wait too long.