Great Trees

C.S. Lewis: They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived - the things God has prepared for those who love him...

What will we be in the future life?

I think we will be like great trees - and here we are only seeds.

We now only hold the essence of who we will be, in the same way a seed holds all the DNA of a giant redwood tree.

I think I'm often in error in the way I consider life in "heaven" (the harbor, the garden, a place of safety). Mostly I think of it as small, as limited, as flat, as black-and-white. In reality, it's huge and complex and endless - and I will grow to embrace it more and more throughout eternity.

For now, I'm just a seed that's cracked open, buried in the ground - trying to reach the surface. In the next life, I will spring to the surface and grow to be a great tree. At present, I can only feel God's light from below ground, through a shell. I will grow, "spread out my leaves", and absorb his presence millions of times beyond what I do now.

God, I look forward to the day I break through the ground into the light.