At the Cross

When I was a seven year old boy grieving for a father who died too soon, I thought a lot about heaven. I was told my father who was not here was in heaven.  I had no reason to doubt what I was told by those who knew more than me.  About the same time I concluded that if there was a heaven, there had to be a God.  I remember looking for Him in the white billowing clouds that blew across the sky.  Not knowing exactly where God could be found, it made sense to look upward toward where I figured heaven to be.  

Some respond to loss and tragedy with anger directed toward God.  Some declare He cannot possibly exist, or He would prevent tragedies like mine and others.  The seven year old boy I once was discovered his first awareness of God in the midst of impossible to understand loss.  From that time going forth, I had my eye open for God.  Of course, I never found Him with my seven year old understanding of God and heaven.  It was actually some years later that He found me and called me to forsake a dead end search.  Knowing God does not begin with finding Him, but in coming to see and know His revealing presence in the world.  

The One for whom so many like myself have searched cannot be found through our futile search, but can only be known through His revealing grace.  Many years after I was seven, I knelt at the foot of the cross of Calvary and the One I sought as a seven year old boy was revealed to me.  There I came to know God as the One who loved me enough to willingly suffer loss, grief, and a broken heart.  There at the foot of the cross, God revealed Himself as One full of forgiveness, unconditional love, and unfathomable grace.  At the foot of the cross the God I sought revealed Himself and showed me the way Home to the prize of heaven.