Heaven's Parking Lot

With the approach of the NFL playoffs and the College National Championship game, I thought it would be a good time to write about an analogy that came to my mind, hence the unusual title for this post.
I think a good way to put this mortal life into perspective is to view it as the parking lot outside of a stadium hosting a big game.  For some the wait can be dreary and tedious.  Others pass the time tailgating.  They cook food, drink and play games.  Sometimes they have so much fun that they look forward to tailgating more than the game itself.  Kind of like how some people get so caught up in the cares of this world that they lose sight of Heaven.
Some people get VIP passes that give them special entrance into the stadium before everyone else.  Sometimes our friends or loved ones get one of those passes and they go into the stadium before us.  This can make our wait harder, as now we don’t have them to keep us company.  Some people become bitter because of this and they wander off the parking lot and into the bar down the street.  Sometimes they get too drunk to find their way back to the game or they lose their ticket.  These are the people who get angry with God when tragedy strikes and turn their back on him.
But for those of us who wait patiently, we can trust that we will eventually join our loved ones in the stadium and take our seat next to them.  When that time comes we will experience something the likes of which we have never known.  And any momentary sadness we felt in the parking lot will fade from our memories.