Pearly Gates and Redeeming Pain

While we've been waiting to receive our work permits to PNG, I've been reading Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven". I really enjoy the book and it's made heaven sound more attractive than I have pictured it when I hear it described as a perpetual song service. It will indeed be magnificent and reflect the Creative One whose Glory will be seen in every detail.

In the twists, turns, ups and downs of the last five years, I, to be totally honest, have asked God if He would reassure me that there is something redeeming in all that has transpired. While I will admit this is not super spiritual I have asked,"Would the world fall off its axis if we went from A to B without something being excruciatingly painful?" We haven't cornered the market on difficulty, but most honest people have asked the same question at some point in their life. I have reviewed events and said, in all truthfulness, "It was less painful getting hit by the car".

Then I realized something about gates made of pearls. Pearls, are of course, born from a painful foreign substance that gets lodged in the oyster's shell. Oyster's don't get up and say, "Let me go find something uncomfortable so I can make a pearl". It's one of those thing that "happens" to the oyster and there's not much the oyster can do about it. I'm not an oyster (really) but I can imagine that "pearl making" is not a wonderful experience.

I looked at the gates in a new way. How amazing and redeeming that the entrance to that great city is by passing through gates which in part are made of a substance born from pain. Born from His pain. Born from ours. Yes, there is something redeeming and even eternal and glorious in that.