The Business of Heaven

I started reading C.S. Lewis’ devotional for the new year, and this is what I came across on January 3rd:

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast.  We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.  It is not hard to see why.  The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God:  a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency.  Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

A Worshiper Enters Heaven

Tonight I found out that Mary Barrett went to be with the Lord a week ago.  She was the worship leader at Calvary Chapel Merritt Island in Florida, and she often led worship at the Pastor’s Wives retreats.  I had the opportunity to hear her at the East Coast Pastor’s Wives Retreat for the first time in 1998.  She had visited Indiana several times.  We drove to Lafayette to hear her there, and she also came to Horizon South for an evening of worship.

She was one of those people who has a deep effect on you although you don’t know them.  She had the ability to disappear while leading people in worship, so that we only saw Jesus.  I’m sure her husband, her mother, her family members, and all those close to her at CC Merritt Island will miss her sorely.  Her going to be with the Lord is a reminder that life is a breath, that we are truly preparing for eternity.  She seems to have prepared well, and now has “entered into the joy of her Master.” 

In the words of one of her songs,

“It don’t matter where they bury me,

Cause I’ll be gone, and I’ll be free.

It don’t matter where I lay,

All my tears be washed away.”