Category Archives: Heaven

Home Again

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Mom had broken her hip badly, a break that needed an operation and a long pin to hold her leg together. It wasn’t easy for this 80-something to come back from surgery, but she focused on the day she’d eventually get to leave the hospital and return home. The medical staff and social workers, however, rerouted her to rehab first and said, “Depending on how you do there, then we’ll talk about going home.”

Mom worked hard in “the torture chamber,” as she called it, and finally found herself riding in Mary’s car back to the place she’d missed for so many weeks. As her wheelchair moved along the sidewalk toward her back door, suddenly she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Mary said, alarmed at her distress.

Looking up at her home she sobbed, “I… I just… I just… didn’t think I’d ever get back here!”

I believe that’s exactly the way we’ll feel when we move from earthly life into eternity. Our current sense of longing to escape our troubles and live in the safe surroundings of a loving home will instantly be satisfied with a tsunami of joy like we’ve never known. We’ll immediately feel settled and secure, because we’ll be home.

I don’t think it’ll feel new or like someone else’s house. The presence of Divinity and the release of our 5 senses to see, feel, smell, hear and touch in new ways will find us wrapped in all things familiar, just better. It’ll seem like someone has put our house in order while we’ve been away on a journey, then added the physical, visible presence of Jesus!

In his book “Heaven”, Randy Alcorn writes, “A common misunderstanding about the eternal Heaven is that it will be unfamiliar. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. When we hear that in Heaven we will have new bodies and live on a New Earth, this is how we should understand the word new – a restored and perfected version of our familiar bodies and our familiar Earth and our familiar relationships. Because we once lived on Earth, the New Earth will strike us as very familiar.”

Scripture contains a mysterious verse in reference to this phenomenon: “The spirit will return to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) If that’s literally true, then of course arriving in heaven truly will be coming home.

Mom used to croon to new babies, “You are precious because you’ve so recently been with God.” I used to call that nonsense, but maybe she did have something there.

In any case, I’ll never forget Mom’s overwhelming joy that day as she re-entered her own home. But when she got to heaven in 2005, I’ll bet there was no comparison.

“We would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8)

Acting Squirrely

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Our Farmer’s Almanac says the Midwest is in for a lollapalooza of a winter. If that’s true, there’s cause for concern about Little Red’s welfare and all his squirrel buddies. Last year our neighborhood was blanketed with acorns, so much so that walking the length of the driveway was like lurching about on a carpet of marbles.

This fall, however, there’s nary an acorn to be seen. God may have told the trees, “After outdoing yourselves last year, take a year off.” But good news for the oaks has been bad news for the critters. I didn’t realize the extent of the problem until I bought a few pumpkins for the front porch.

I’d barely gone inside when the first little thief came and dragged the tiny baseball-sized pumpkin away. I counted again and again before realizing what had happened. Now, a week later, they’re all but gone, the chewed-up evidence scattered throughout the yard.

All of this off-the-ground eating puts me in mind of the biblical manna. Although its timely arrival every night was miraculous, God told the Israelites his main reason for sending it wasn’t to satisfy their hunger, as much as to teach them about the nourishing, faithful Source behind it: him.

I sometimes think of the incredible boredom of eating manna every day for 40 years. The slaves of the Egyptian pharaoh who left in a hurry never realized how scrumptious that last Passover meal had been with its roast lamb and all the trimmings. Once they were in the desert, it was same old, same old, despite God’s eventual addition of quail to the menu.

We get frustrated eating leftovers more than once or twice in a row. How about being raised on manna as your staple? Forty years worth of newly-born wilderness-Israelites had no idea what it was like to eat anything else.

I always thought of manna as God’s provision of love, but the Bible says he sent it “to humble them and test them” for their own good. (Deuteronomy 8:16) In other words, he knew how difficult it would be to exist on the miraculous but boring manna day after day but considered it useful training. And then came that glorious day when they walked into Canaan and had their first taste of something new: baked bread and roasted grain, mmmm-good!

At the end of God’s humbling and the tests he allows into our lives even today, we can always count on him to provide the mmmm-good when it’s over!

BTW, maybe the local squirrels have viewed their annual acorn diet like so much manna, nourishing but boring. If so, this year’s pumpkin feast must seem like the Promised Land!

“No manna appeared on the day they first ate from the crops of [Canaan], and it was never seen again.” (Joshua 5:12)

(FYI, Scripture hints we might all get to see and taste a little manna in heaven. Remember, he saved a jar of starter in the Ark of the Covenant. Revelation 2:17)

Beautiful People

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Yesterday’s post prompted thoughtful comments from readers, both visible on the site and invisible via the contact button. Apparently facial symmetry fascinates all of us and has much to do with how beautiful or handsome we appear to the general public.

Scientists and poll-takers have started a debate about perfect faces, joining plastic surgeons and make-up artists, who’ve already been there for decades. Researching on line, I learned that precious few people are born beautiful.

Brad Pitt and Kate Moss are supposedly two examples of perfection. Their faces have been measured by experts and found to be exactly even in feature dimensions. In other words, neither of them have a “bad side” when they walk Hollywood’s red carpet. It’s just all good.

My friend Terry, a mathematical genius, blog-commented that she’s also studied facial symmetry and has experimented with her high school students. “I had them bring in a picture of their faces as frontally dead-on as possible. Then they put a mirror down in the middle of the picture to see what they’d look like if they were symmetrical. Rarely did it improve the look.”

Fascinated, I went on line to check her statement, because scientists were claiming that all of us are naturally drawn to perfectly balanced faces. Louisa and I found web sites displaying celebrity photos in which a person’s good side was mirror-imaged and put in place of his/her bad side.

Terry was right. They all looked a little off, like an altered version of the faces we knew.

Terry went one observation further. In her classroom experiment with mirrors, she asked students to note the age-difference from one side to the other: “There’s an ‘old’ and a ‘young’ side to each face, depending on which way the mirror is facing, though it might not be apparent in the very old or very young.”

The most famous example of this is Abraham Lincoln’s face as carved in stone inside Washington DC’s Lincoln Memorial. I remember as a child, running from one side to the other, checking on what Dad had told us: “The sculptor wanted to show Lincoln’s inner struggle as president. One side looks old and exhausted, representing war. The other looks youthful and rested, reflecting peace.” It was true, although from the front, Lincoln still looked like Lincoln.

The last comment Terry made, however, was the best: “Since the Holy of Holies and heaven itself are described as a perfect cube, I can only assume that all math will be redeemed in eternity, and perfect symmetry will be restored from the effects of the curse.”

Astounding thought!

And Terry, whether or not your face has two good sides, you’ve got Brad and Kate beat with your mathematical genius. That is both good and beautiful!

The angel “showed me the holy city. When he measured it, he found it was a square, as wide as it was long. In fact, its length and width and height were each 1,400 miles.” (Revelation 2:10,16)

Finding the Lost

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When I was fresh out of college, teaching in the Chicago school system, my bank account was flush with paychecks and very few financial commitments. The dollars piled up, and a friend suggested I swap my Chevy Corvair for something classier.

I bought another Chevrolet but this time a Corvette convertible with both hard and soft tops. It was candy apple red and full of speed. With an apartment on Chicago’s near north side, 3 great roommates and a secure job, I was enjoying my new independence.

One busy Sunday afternoon I arrived back at the apartment planning to stay only a few minutes and parked my Corvette on the street without putting up the top. In less than 10 minutes, it had been stolen.

I called the police, filed a report, posted notices and drove a borrowed car through Chicago neighborhoods in search of my beloved Corvette, but it had vanished.

On this 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, while listening to a recitation of casualty names, I thought about the nearly 3000 people who had vanished that day. Hospitals were staffed and waiting, but very few patients ever arrived. For weeks family members believed their loved ones might still be found alive, so they posted pictures and desciptions throughout the city.

Bus stop shelters and phone booths became makeshift bulletin boards covered with photos and names as hopeful people tried to connect with those they couldn’t find, but precious few succeeded. Yesterday I heard the gruesome statistic: only 39 bodies were actually found in the rubble.

None of those 3000 planned to finish their lives that day, but just like them, the rest of us don’t pick our last day either. It takes exceptional planning to be ready, and apart from God, none of us can be.

But there’s a big difference between New York’s picture Lost and Found and God’s. Every one of us start out lost because of our inherited bent toward sin, like pictures on a bulletin board waiting to be rescued. Thankfully, God’s finder fee was paid by Christ, and 100% of those who want to be found, are.

If it were up to God, his Lost and Found would be completely empty, nothing on the bulletin board, no pictures of the lost. But he’s left it up to each of us. And with unplanned last-days like September 11, 2001, a decision that says “yes” to being found by the Lord is better made now rather than later.

(As for the red Corvette, against all odds the police found it 24 hours later, in tact except for the screwdriver where the starter had been.)

“The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. Now is the time of God’s favor; now is the day of salvation.” (Luke 19:10, 2 Corinthians 6:2)

Fairy Tale Living

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When Nate and I got married in 1969, Pastor Sweeting asked each of us for a favorite Bible verse he could incorporate into our wedding ceremony. As a 24-year-old, I looked ahead to the fairy tale life Nate and I would lead, unaware of the twists and turns we would have to take. So I told the pastor my favorite verse was 2 Samuel 22:33: “God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect.” And that, along with Nate’s favorite, was the Scripture he used.

Life was perfect back then. I was a bride with a handsome groom looking toward endless bright tomorrows. Although I had only a perfunctory relationship with God, I thought my wedding verse summarized exactly how life would unfold: perfectly. At that moment, “my way was perfect,” though I don’t recall crediting God for any of it.

As the Lord would have it, though, life wouldn’t be the fairy-tale I’d envisioned. He loved me too much not to put some bumps on our road. In his view, hard times would be the reason I’d step closer to him.

Since those idyllic days of 1969, I’ve learned life may have brief moments of fairy tale happiness, but this side of heaven, that can’t be the theme. I’ve also learned that rough patches do have the capacity for joy buried in them.

In 2004 I was asked a second time about my favorite verse. Mom surprised us at her 90th birthday party, arriving with 23 gifts for her 3 children, 3 children-in-law, and 17 grandchildren: a Bible for each one, the style, translation and cover chosen to match the different personalities. Then she said,  “Next year when I turn 91, the only birthday gift I want is for each of you to write down your favorite verse from your new Bible and tell me why.”

I didn’t have to think long. Although 2 Samuel 22:33 is still God’s inspired truth, the verse I’d needed most often in the 35 years since our wedding, had been a different one. Despite my fairy tale expectations in 1969, troubles had, indeed, found us, and I’d needed God’s practical help, as well as a way to find joy within struggles.

I found both by claiming my special verse: James 1:5.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”  

God hopes his Word will come in handy for us. He says it’s alive and able to empower us to get through each dilemma that comes. As we use Scripture for everyday purposes we’re actually linking up with eternity, because God’s Word is established in heaven.

And maybe when we get there, instead of relying on one favorite verse, we’ll automatically have the whole Bible memorized, a grand finale’ unmatched by any fairy tale.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35)