Can you remember the moments in your life when everything felt absolutely perfect? Even just for a millisecond in time?

Maybe you were sitting in the middle of a large group, everyone laughing, and you felt an overwhelming sense of peace and belonging. Perhaps for the first time ever…

Or maybe, in a moment of complete vulnerability with a friend, they said exactly.the.right.thing. And you thought Wow… This person really gets me.

Life can be good, can’t it? And people so very, very beautiful…

Sadly, a moment of “perfection” can vanish fast. With this in mind, I often try to consciously capture them – for future reference.

For now, we inhabit a broken, messed-up world, but in these moments I forget the sin and the shame, the darkness and the despair, the poverty and the imperfection.

I forget that things haven’t been made right yet.

Yes, it’s true that some things will turn out for the better. Some wounds will be given band-aids. And some impossible situations will turn into absolute triumphs.

But so often we fail to remember that this isn’t the end of the story.

This life is not all there is. (Thank God!)

There is more.

Infinitely more.

That’s why this life feels so incomplete – so insubstantial – and incredibly heartbreaking at times.

When we die, I believe, it really is just the beginning.

In The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis writes:

“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

And my favourite verse, Revelation 21:4, reads:

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

We, as God’s children, haven’t even got to Chapter One yet.

We are living out “the old order of things”. Things are damaged and broken now, but they’ll be made new!

Behold, I am making all things new, says Jesus.

Life is beautiful, but not always. On the other side it will be beautiful, full of Jesus’ light and perfect – always.