My 5 year old son, Samuel, asks a million questions a day (at least it seems like a million!). Recently, he asks a lot of questions about heaven. What it looks like, who is there, what people do in heaven, etc. Inevitably the conversations eventually turn to the topic of losing someone, and he makes declarations that he doesn’t want to die and doesn’t want me or anyone else in our family to die. These kind of conversations are challenging – especially with a 5 year old child – but also with mature adults. God has given us so many things on earth to love and cherish that our finite minds have difficulty comprehending the eternity of heaven.
Growing up, I went every Memorial Day with my dad to the cemetery on the edge of town. Many of his loved ones were buried there. His father (who died in his forties), his sister (who died when she was 4 days old), his grandparents, and many more. We would tidy up the areas around their headstones and leave flowers. But the best part of the trip was that my dad talked about them. He told stories about their lives and made me feel like I knew them, although I had never met any of them. And always he spoke of their love for God. He would remind me that while we didn’t get to be with them now, that because they were in heaven with God we would all someday rejoice together for eternity.
As Christians, the concept of eternity is one of the most important things that separates us from non-believers. Death and what comes after should not be frightful for us. In fact, everything we do should be centered around the eventuality of reaching heaven and praying that everyone we know and love will be there too.
I am thankful not only for the memories made all those years ago with my dad, but for the way he was able to bring faith to life about what happens after death. Hopefully the talks that Samuel and I have about heaven will leave him at peace about the concept of mortality and eternity, both of which he is just beginning to grasp.
I am so thankful for the words of Jesus, which are not only comforting, but (to me anyway:) ) exciting as well:
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” John 14:1-4