Eternity...Forward and Backward

I was on my way home this weekend from a trip to Virginia and we stopped at a bookstore on our way home so that the kids and I would have something to read.

I was not able to find the book I was looking for, but I came across C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce and it looked like an enjoyable read.

I didn't get to read it that evening because the sun had set by the time we made it back to the car, instead I read it yesterday evening. It is a short book, but it contains a great concept that I want to quote and share with you...

'Son,' he said, 'ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. 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. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven," and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.' ~Page 69

I marked this place in my book and read it to my husband. I said, "That is the best understanding I have ever gotten of eternity and it is one that I agree with."

My reasoning is that when I read that, I remembered the Prodigal Son times that were hard and they seemed to pile up on one another. The times when I lost my faith. Rather than viewing trials as learning experiences or opportunities to grow closer to the Lord, I viewed them as punishments. Hell is a punishment, but it doesn't have to be, it can be a place we pass through or it can be a place we choose to stop and stay in, but the choice is ours because God loves every one of us and He doesn't want to force us to a place we don't want to be. If we can't or won't accept God's divine will, then He won't force it upon us, no matter how miserable we make ourselves, and He won't force our chosen misery upon others either.

When I view each trial as a gift, as a moment to learn and grow from, every experience is one that draws me nearer and nearer to God. How can growing closer to the Lord be anything BUT heavenly? How can we, knowing where we were, want anything less than to share that joy with others? Not in such a way that draws us back into Hell, but in such a way that brings those who still are in Hell to where we are...in Heaven.

Choose your eternity, let it be Heaven, let it start now here on earth.

God bless you.