When Imagination Isn't Good Enough - Schneider

I've reached the point in my current work-in-progress where I realize the written story will not be as amazing as it was when it existed in my imagination alone. Somehow the written word puts limitations on the story that make it less than what I envisioned.

I know I'm not alone in this experience. Many of my favourite authors have referred to this moment of disappointment. The only cure is to just keep writing, and make the story as good as it can be.

How many things in this earthly life are like this? We envision the perfect holiday, only to have the experience lack that unnamable "something". Oh, the holiday is a wonderful experience, but it's missing something we can't define.

Or we have the sense that if we can just ________ (insert activity or goal of your choice) life will be without flaw. Yet when we achieve or experience whatever it was, we find it's less than what we hoped for.

I call this the "taste of heaven". Our hearts, and our souls, long for Heaven. We know it will be perfect. It will be beyond what we can even imagine. I Corinthians 2:9, 10 "No eye has seen nor ear has heard, no man has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him--but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit."

In other words, pure logic can't figure this one out. Yet, deep within, God's Spirit has whispered to us what we can expect to experience when we see God face to face. It will be amazing. It will satisfy every longing we ever had for companionship, for beauty, for joy.

These thoughts are particularly poignant to me as I consider Ruth Bell Graham, who lies at the threshold of Heaven, if she hasn't already crossed over. I've admired her from afar since I was a teenager. My heart aches for her family as they face her absence from their earthly lives.
My soul envies her. She's on the verge of experiencing the undiluted, uninterrupted Presence of God, on the cusp of tasting that for which we all long.

Ruth, thank you for what your earthly life showed us of God's grace, for letting us watch you serve your God with faithfulness and complete devotion. We'll miss you.