Through a glass darkly

In this one photo, I am looking at our current reality. This darling, little mother is in a nursing home just up the road from here. Her daughter took the picture when she went to see her today, and it’s twisting my heart all around.

A virus called ‘corona’ is keeping them apart. For love, you see, has chosen the hard, hard way. And love, for now, must keep its distance. Must limit itself to tears and smiles through the glass, and a wave.

This is hard.

Her name, this gray-haired mother, is Gayle. She cried hard today, her daughter said, feeling the pain of separation. No hugs. No kisses. No touches. Just the wave of a hand and a tearful smile through that glass.

“I believe she thinks it will never end,” Jacci told me. I promised her that Jesus will let us hold each other again. On that, we can count!”

Jacci’s right. The suffering we endure down here is only temporary for the children of God. Glory’s coming (can you see it?) some sweet day.

“For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain–faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13: 12-13).”

P.S. – Jacci praised the healthcare workers who are taking care of her mother and the other residents there. Gayle’s nurse who was in attendance “had a Kleenex in each hand for her tears.” May King Jesus walk the halls of this and every other home, shedding His peace to the weak, sick, and elderly among us. Our beloved fellow Americans.