Sunrays

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

            Someone once told me that heaven is synonymous with perfection.  Having never been there (yet), I couldn’t really say for sure.  With all the sickness, pain, and death of this world, I can hardly imagine perfection.

            Today my attempt at homework is unsuccessful, certainly not meeting my standards.  I find myself unable to write or concentrate on any of my assigned reading, likely due to the few hours of sleep I’ve acquired this week.  I wore the weight of this world in my heart for the past seven days and couldn’t find rest even with all the praying.  Internal pressures/fear mixed with worries for family and friends led to countless hours of lying, awake and very conscious, in bed.  When sleep refused to come, I’d pull out a book or my computer and try to find some piece of mind.  It didn’t work.

           

            Despite all of that, I continue to try to finish something. Get it done now, and you watch the game on Sunday, or play with the cousins, or visit with Grammy after church.  Or maybe even sleep in tomorrow.  That’s what I tell myself anyway. 

           

Suddenly, I smile a little, a ray breaking through my night.

In the next room, I hear laughter, full, loud laughter that can only be my family.  One giggles, like a young child – not like the young man of eighteen that he is, and one sort of guffaws, just like her father always did.  A joyful squeal.  An uncharacteristic snort.  The dogs bark, unable to be excluded from the fun.

Sometimes I forget that I have glimpsed heaven.