Don't just talk about it
On our wedding night AJ was sharing a lot of vision that he had for us and our family. This was my favorite part of the whole night. It was so neat to have my husband of a few hours already leading me. One thing he said that night, which was repeated nearly daily by us from then on, was, "We're the Buffington's and we say what we mean and we mean what we say." We wanted people to be able to trust us. We wanted to be able to trust each other.
In AJ's death I still want that to be true of me and how I live my life. AJ was such an amazing husband. It was a priviledge to sumbit to him. It was a priviledge to be his wife! It was a priviledge to be lead by him. He taught me so much. He was truly a Godly husband and fulfilled every part of the role that God describes for husbands to fulfill. His life pointed to God. His life pointed me to God.
Now I want my life to point to God as well. I want to live in a way that makes AJ proud. The way of living that would make AJ proud is living for God and keeping him first, being real and being totally sold out to Christ- holding nothing back; loving extravagantly. That is how AJ lived. That is how he taught me to live.
I just know God must have been so pleased with him when he finally came home. I bet all of heaven rejoiced to see him. There was probably a long line filled with people waiting to pat AJ on the back and say "well done dude." It is odd though, I know God weeps over AJ's death. In fact, I believe He shed the first tear over the whole situation even though he knew it was going to happen. But yet, I know He is glad to have AJ home too. The same is probably true for all of heaven. I don't know really.
Heaven is such a mystery. God is so mysterious. Our finite human minds can only fathom so much. It will be neat to see how it all really is when we get there to the other side. It is weird to think that earth isn't "it"! It is weird that earth is only a dim shadow of heaven. We will be more alive and see clearer in heaven then we ever thought possible here on earth. That is so weird to me. Since earth is all we know it is hard to imagine an even greater reality. But yet a greater reality exists just beyond where we can see with our eyes. Only rarely does God give us glimpses into eternity.
My husband dying has now given me a desire to search for a glimpse into eternity. I ask so many more questions now about the other side. There is so little we know. I was wondering why God has chosen to reveal so little of heaven to us. When I asked Carl he gave a very real and probably correct response to my question. He said that if we knew how great heaven was we probably would have no will or desire to continue living here on earth.
It's funny, we all preserve life so much while we are here on earth. But really death isn't something we should fear if we belong to Christ. It really shouldn't be called death anyway. We really actually only become even more alive once we "die" then we ever were here on earth. It should be switched, We shouldn't say AJ for example has died, we should say AJ is finally alive! He is finally free from the boundaries and constraints this fallen world puts on us.
We make such a big deal about death for the person who is gone. It really is a wonderful thing for AJ. But it is a huge devastating deal for us who are left behind to walk this road here on earth without him. It really sucks for us. It really hurts to be here with out AJ. I really miss my AJ. I miss him leading me. I miss him holding me accountable. Most of all I miss him loving me. He didn't just talk about loving me- he really loved me. He showed me by what he did that he loved me. So here I am back to this one word. Love. I have so much more to learn. But I will try my best to Love. Love.
posted by Kellie # 10:04 AM
