Longing

Some background is necessary to understanding this post.

First, we have been traveling on a difficult journey with the family of a seven year old boy, a close friend of my son, who is, to all appearances, losing his battle against leukemia. His name is Joseph and he has spent the better part of the past two months in the hospital. Today is Joseph’s birthday, and that he lives to celebrate it with his family and friends is a wonderful thing. We will help him celebrate.

Secondly, my son and I have become enamored with an odd British sci-fi series called Dr. Who. (Watch the 2005 episode 1 and you’ll be hooked, too.) Dr. Who is a time traveler who travels in what looks like a phone booth but which is really a time-traveling spaceship called a ‘TARDIS‘.

Yesterday, he and I went to the hospital to see Joseph. In the hospital elevator, I said to him, “Hey, this is like a TARDIS. So, where do you want to go?”

Without a pause or a moment’s reflection, he said, “To a dimension where Joseph is not sick.”

A child’s longing is our own.

A longing fulfilled by our gospel hope.

Come, Lord Jesus.