This is a scriptural meditation from trhe Russian book, “Day by Day”. Lewis connection follows:
"Scripture: ‘We have a dwelling place from God in heaven, an eternal home not built by hands.’ (2 Cor. 5,1)
"Meditation: No matter where we are, our path leads to our eternal home. We are heading there and may be summoned any minute. Our way may be difficult and lonely and our feet lacerated by the road, but still even here, among the burrs, thorns and obstacles along the path, we gather the fruits which ripen in this soil. Heavenly sounds reach us here as well, and they give us encouragement and warm our lonely hearts, filling them with bright and joyful expectation.
“On this thorny path we are surrounded by fellow-travelers also heading for the “precious gates”. They sometimes enter there before our eyes. We hear the final sounds of their song of praise and we know that they are cleansed of all their sins by the Blood of Christ. ‘The fullness of joy before Your face’ (Psalm 16:11). And here, in our gloomy desert, we are sometimes illuminated by a glow of this heavenly joy. We seem to experience a foretaste of this joy and soon, very soon, sooner perhaps than we think, we will ourselves appear before the open gates, at the source of life, ‘before His face’, met by Him, forgiven and accepted into eternal rest.”
This meditation brings to mind what Lewis wrote towards the end of “Surprised by Joy”:
'But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, “Look!” The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ‘We would be at Jerusalem.’ "
Dimitry
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)