Spouse Or Stranger?

Q

I have severely abused the servers getting everything I can get my mouse on for reading at work, and I thank you for your ministry. It has transformed my spiritual life in the largest rejuvenation since my Salvation experience. Literally every day I realize something new that contradicts bad theology and beliefs about my walk with God.

I read in your Ask A Bible Teacher column about marriage in heaven and the knowledge greatly distressed me. Please explain what elderly couples like my grandparents who were married fifty-odd years and totally devoted to each other (Grandma still keeps track of her wedding anniversaries) do if the spouse that left first won’t remember them or be married to them in some aspect in the New Jerusalem.

In my personal life I love my wife unconditionally and have a very hard time reconciling that we won’t be married in any respect in Heaven. I can understand women with four husbands or horrible marriages not wanting to see these guys in heaven, but what about happily married couples? Will I go from “till death do you part” to “Hello, I’m your next door neighbor!”? Grandmother tells me what she misses Grandpa and wants to be wherever he is, and a driving goal of mine is to be reunited with all of my saved loved ones in the Rapture.

In a nutshell will happily married couples who wait in faith to be reunited in heaven be subsequently broken up upon “putting on the incorruptible”? Will the family unit survive the Rapture? I love my wife and I don’t want her to become a stranger to me.

A

Do you think the Lord gave His life so you could go to heaven only to make you sad or lonely when you get there? While the Bible doesn’t explain this in so many words, the character and promises of God are such as to prevent anything that would diminish our joy. To me that means that our loved ones will be our closest companions. All that will change will be the disappearance of the little things they do here that annoy us. You will be closer there than you ever have been here.