“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

Some Day We’ll Know

My mother, now in her “golden” years—although she says there isn’t much golden about them—was reminiscing with me about her own grandmother, with whom she was very close when she was in her growing-up years. My mother heard stories of the farm life, of “Aunt Susan,” the slave-nanny who loved her and reared her as if she was her own dear child; of the horse that delivered and retrieved the children from school each day; of putting fresh milk in glass jars and then into the stream to stay cool in the summer; of the ice truck that came around with great blocks of ice packed into sawdust in the back, and how the chips flew off when it was chopped, and all the children grabbed a sliver to suck on. (I may be mixing up grandma and great-grandma stories, but you get the idea.)

These are treasured memories. But my mother regrets that she did not ask additional questions of her grandmother while she was still alive. We have one framed picture of great-grandma’s family, standing stiffly in their Sunday best outside their white farmhouse, and we have a couple of black-and-whites from the early years. The rest lives on only in our heads.

My mother knows she is the keeper of the memories now. She has passed them on to me, but there are so many years missing from our history. What about that one and only trip to California when great-grandma was young? Where did they go while courting? How did they get along in the lean years? What was it like to do the canning, baking, frying, plucking, picking, and ironing in summer’s heat and humidity while wearing the long apron over the long dress with the long sleeves?

So many questions unasked. So much family history we will never know, my mother says. Lived, and loved, and lost.

But my mother is a believer in Jesus Christ, and so was her grandmother before her. I reminded Mom that heaven is coming; rather than lamenting what hasn’t been discovered, she will have all of eternity to learn the things she wishes she knew now.

There are so many things we don’t know, and can’t know, in this life. But thank our great God, He has planned a resurrection for us. With new bodies, and new minds, and new everything else, we will forever dwell among one another, knowing what we haven’t known, and knowing our Savior face-to-face.

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).

“Father, thank You for the memories we hold dear from this life, yet may we always anticipate what You have prepared for us. Amen.”