fall in love.

My Macintosh Spice candle is burning, I'm listening to beautiful music, and my apartment is clean(ish) and decorated for fall.  :)  Is it okay to love a season this much?  I know I'm ready for Christmas, but I think I could sit here living life just like this...forever.

I hope heaven smells like fall, feels like summer, looks like spring and has the excitement of the first winter snow.  And God will be all wrapped up in the middle of it, the warmest, most exciting, most comfortable and beautiful part of it all.

I can't even imagine what it's going to be like.  I sometimes try, but it's inherently flawed for me to even think about it.  Who am I to imagine what God's perfect kingdom will be?  I know that He will have created it for our enjoyment, but frankly, I think the enjoyment won't be a large banquet table set with our favorite foods, or beautiful robes made of shimmering silk and embroidered with gold, or reuniting with long-gone beloved pets, or seeing loved ones from a life past.

We'll be in the presence of the Most High God.  With Him.  All the time.  Sitting at His feet, leaning against His knees, breathing in His warm, earthy sweetness that will be infinitely better than any autumnal candle.  Can you imagine an eternity of such joyful serenity?  Who needs pets and clothes and food when this is the alternative?

It's going to be all the best things in life, all wrapped up in One and magnified by the glorious perfection of His new creation.  The beauty of perfected nature mixed with warmth like the sun emanating from the risen Christ.  It's going to be the relaxed feeling of napping in a hammock at the beach, the closeness and peace of sitting with your true love and best friend, having nowhere you need to go and nothing you need to do.  The joy of having a doting father who loves you more than anything, no matter what happens, whom you can never again disappoint.  It will be the most beautiful music that speaks to your soul and your soul only, as do the words He says, and the words you reply, a common conversation made heartbreakingly sweet by the sacrifice that made it possible.

We will all have voices that are worthy of His ears, singing the praises of the only One who deserves praise.  There will be no hunger, even for those who have never known anything else.  There will be no sadness, even for those who have never had occasion for joy.  There will be no pain, even for those who were born with it seething in their limbs.  There will only be Christ, and with Him, all the love and beauty and joy and rest and peace and perfection that we have all searched for our whole lives but have never been able to provide for ourselves.

How gracious of Him to give us tastes of these things now, to provide glimpses of the heaven we will experience, by revealing Himself to us in this imperfect and stained world!