The nestling had fallen from its nest, just as his sibling had done. The sibling’s injuries snuffed out his life rather quickly, but this one was uninjured, and a fighter. Naked still of future feathers, barely able to hobble, but a beak open and wanting something to quench its thirst. Probably with more heart than wisdom, we attempted to warm the very infant bird and dropper fed him some water, attempting too to encourage small bits of a protein concoction. And for a few days, our little friend held onto life, his very small chirps encouraging us to keep trying. Gabby was already committed to friendship when we found his body cold and lifeless. We were all a bit sad, but Gabby wanted the assurance he was in “bird heaven,” just as her little fish was in “fish heaven,” and the frog at preschool was now in “frog heaven.” She figured God had a special heaven for each species of His creation, even for little children who have died. And that was when we shared more fully with her the very special place God has for the children, and the big people, who have loved Him.
Sadness does accompany death, especially when we have loved and given deeply to the one who has died. Grief is a darkness of emotions, a raw emptiness, a cry for life to once again have meaning and purpose. We are encouraged though as believers that we do not need to grieve as those who have no hope. We do have hope. Paul told the Corinthians that when the believer is absent from his earthly body, he has found a new presence and body with God. Jesus Himself taught that God’s eternal dwelling place was called “Heaven.” He also taught that when He finished on earth what God wanted Him to do, He would return to His Father’s eternal dwelling place and prepare a place for us so we can share it with Him. We understand Heaven still more by what it is not. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. There will be nothing unclean, nothing stained by sin, no practicing of sin. There will be no sin. Heaven will be a place of unimaginable beauty and perfection. Our hope of heaven would be meaningless though apart from the reunions that will take place. Saturated and overflowing with the love, the peace, the joy, the holiness, and the very presence of our God, in Heaven, we will be embraced, literally, physically, by the arms of the One who stretched out His arms amidst the cruelties of earth, and died for us to make Heaven our hope. And just as David recognized he would some day go to his child who died, so too, as believers, we will reunite with our own loved ones, and grief will be fully and completely replaced by the joy of those reunions as the permanence of our hope is lived out through the eons and eons of eternity.
Children do have a simplicity about them that believes quickly, their beliefs uncomplicated by doubt or hesitancy. Sometimes I would like to just be a child, awed by the truth and hope of eternity, of Heaven, and of the God who makes it all possible. Hope would become much more tangible.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: 2 Corinthians 5:1-6; John 14:1-4)
