When I started reading this last chapter, I started balling b/c it's titled "When Sinners Say Goodbye." Don't like thinking about when it will be time to say goodbye to Bill, so I do my best to push away those thoughts. But they do always make me remember what a precious, precious gift from the Lord he is. Bill has been so instrumental in my life, constantly laying down his life for mine. I am truly a blessed woman. And as much as I don't like to think about that time when we will have to say goodbye, it does remind me to make the days we do have together count... to not take them for granted, as I am so prone to do.
So without further ado... from the last chapter of When Sinners Say "I Do," by Dave Harvey, on the loss of a spouse... (Thank you, Lord, for helping me to finish another book!)
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison... (2 Corinthians 4:17)
The Greek word for "slight" in 2 Corinthians 4:17 means light in weight, easy to bear, without much substance. It's the same word Jesus used in Matthew 11:30 when he said, "My burden is light."
... the word "slight" is intentionally set in contrast to the "weight of glory beyond all comparison" that awaits us in heaven. "When Paul says his afflictions are light," writes John Piper, "he does not mean easy or painless. He means that compared to what is coming they are as nothing. Compared to the weight of glory coming, they are like feathers on the scale" (p. 178).
Just as "slight" is set off in 2 Corinthians against "weight of glory," "momentary" is set off against "eternal weight of glory." When measured by eternity, this mortal life is but a breath, a vapor, a suspended cloud that quickly dissipates in the slightest breeze. Whatever trial you are in, it will end, and one day you will see it for what it truly is: momentary and slight (p. 179, some emphases mine).
As real as our marriages are to us on this earth, they are just a shadow of the reality we will experience when Christ comes to claim his bride. Then we will have a wedding feast to celebrate our union with Christ that is unlike any feast that has ever been celebrated before. The entire family of Christ will be there - not one missing from the whole earth. The joy at that feast will not be marred by sin, struggle, pain, or disappointment. We will be forever with Christ in our new home. What glory is set before us as sinners who said, I do" (p. 183, emphases mine).
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