I can only imagine ...
Last Friday night was my second time playing piano for the residents at a local rest home. I did the same thing as the week before, took requests from the hymnal there in the building. We sang songs like “Count Your Blessings” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder”, and I peeked beside and behind me as much as I could, looking at the living testimonies of salvation and grace sitting beside me in wheelchairs and slumped in recliners.I played and sang a few songs from books that I had brought with me, one of which was the ever-popular “I Can Only Imagine.” To my surprise, most of the residents didn’t seem to know the song, or at least not the way I sang it (which was full of mistakes and wrong notes, I’m sure). But at the end of it I looked over at Marion, the woman who I have come to recognize and appreciate as the loudest singer in the room at any given moment. She had her eyes closed, hands raised, and – though there were tears rolling down her cheeks – a smile dominated her face. I asked her if she liked the song, and she replied (with her eyes still closed and hands still raised), “I was just imagining what it will be like.”
I had to play through the next few songs without singing because of the huge lump in my throat. I made it through another 30 or so minutes of singing and playing, and then I went around the building to say goodnight to some of my new friends. I walked with Marion down the hall to her room (she would not let me push her wheelchair), filled with a sense of envy at the way that this woman lives. No, I don’t envy the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair or shares a small room with another adult. I don’t wish that I could eat cold soup or drink warm sweet tea from a plastic tray brought to me by a person lacking warmth or compassion. I don’t wish that I was a person who needed help to perform basic physical functions …
But I do wish that I had just a tiny measure of the faith that it seems Marion has. I wish that hearing a song would lead me to closing my eyes and seeing Jesus, and imagining what it will be like to bask in His presence someday. I wish that I had the type of joy that it requires to roll down a hallway in a wheelchair and smile at the wonder of being able to use my hands to push myself along the railing.
Something that has been coming up again and again lately is the truth that – as Christians – we are royalty. We have riches and splendor and incredible power at our fingertips, if only we lift up our heads and claim that we are Children of the Most High God. Last Friday night I played piano before royalty. I walked alongside a Queen as she pushed herself along the hallway with a smile on her face and an assurance in her heart that she is wealthy beyond measure. Marion knows that she is regal – she has already claimed her spot at the royal table. Though I can’t see them, I know she is arrayed in fine robes of purple and gold. Her smile is her crown, and her tears are jewels that are evidence of her dignified state … I look forward to spending more time in that place, for I have the feeling that there might be a few more Kings and Queens hiding in some of those not-so-pleasant-smelling rooms. Actually, I get the idea that perhaps the Kings and Queens of the next world are the ones who don’t live in palaces here – it seems like maybe they are the ones who live in humble dwellings and in small circumstances, because they know that they are headed to riches and wonder that this world can’t even fathom.
A quote from The Chronicles of Narnia comes to mind right now:
"'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.'"
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