story translated

I found the passage about Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ grave. It is in John Eldredge’s book, Desire. He says:
“ He (Jesus) then comes to the grave site and weeps. Certainly the tears were not for Lazarus, for according to Jesus, Lazarus is quite well. Jesus weeps for Martha and Mary and for all of us who suffer loss. I think he weeps not only for our loss, but also for our inability to see beyond it. Dare I say, sometimes our refusal to see beyond it?”

He goes on to quote John Donne’s words:
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language, and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators.: some pieces translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every situation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.”

And our lives…our stories…so translated, will be the joy and the music of heaven…the whole reason Jesus came to redeem our souls. Our sorrow and our sadness…our sickness and our pain…our tears and our tiredness…all translated into the joy of Heaven (Wow! That’s a lot of joy!).

I can hardly wait!
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