They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

What will it be like to be crowned with everlasting joy? To be “overtaken” with gladness and joy? There is certainly the joy of relief. People who survive accidents often break out in giddy laughter afterward, relief overtaking the fear of the event. But there is also the joy of anticipation, the joy that comes when you know the road has opened before you and life will now happen the way you’ve always wished it would. Both shall be yours, the relief, followed by the thrill of anticipation—probably in that order.

It may be a difficult thing to imagine your soul’s complete restoration. But perhaps you can get there by thinking of the restoration of the ones you love. Think of the joy it will be to see them young and well, alive and free, everything you knew they were! You always knew there was a shining greatness in there, though they never could quite take hold of it for themselves. And you see it. How many times over will we hear at the feast, “Look at you! You’re glorious!”?

Oh, to see again the ones we have lost and know they can never be taken from us again. Imagine the tears of joy and the very long embraces!

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Whom are you looking forward to seeing again? 

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