Why I Believe In Eternity

From my journal. From an event that happened 20 years ago....

I can't find a heartbeat.

Nothing prepares you to hear that news as a young mother. I had gone in for a routine prenatal visit, in my second trimester of pregnancy.

Mrs. Hartke, I'm sorry, but the baby you carry has died.

Life changed for me at that moment. I remember leaving the clinic that day and was astounded that the sun was still shining. I felt gray and stormy clouds would have been more fitting, would have matched the anguish I felt.

So I began the dance of grief. A raw and lonely dance. A dance that few wanted to join.

I remember going to the store shortly after the news. My then-toddler got into some stuff at the counter when I wasn't paying attention. The clerk spoke to me harshly and I wanted to scream back at him, "Be nice to me. My baby just died." But instead, I left, feeling like a double failure.

The dance of grief is one we're forced into, usually catching us off guard and sweeping us into its wretched rhythm. But if we're willing, God will join us there and comfort us.

Sometimes I wonder why our daughter, Emily, lived such a short time. I wish with everything inside me that she had lived longer. But as I was thinking about that, I had to ask myself:

What if she had lived 3 years? Would that have been enough time? No. 

How about 15 years? Still not enough time. 

How about 40 years? Would that have been enough time?

No. Absolutely not.

Everything in my mother's heart rebels at the thought of losing a child, no matter how old.

As I look into the future as my parents get older and I ask myself, "If I have 10 more years with them, is that enough time?" Again my heart says no. Five more years? Still not enough.

It is one reason I believe in eternity. Because everything in my heart tells me that there has to be more to life than this.

And your heart is telling you the same thing. That we were created for a place without time.

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: where there is such a thing as water....If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.    - C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

When that final day comes for me, I will enter the reality of heaven and the One who has loved me from before time, who has never left me even on my darkest days, he will approach. Jesus will extend his hand to me and ask, "Can I have this dance?" and I will step forward, place my hand in his and the dance will begin."

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3