Someone suggested that Heaven should always be spelled with a capital H. Although not on a paper map or on MapQuest, there are definitely directions on “how” to get there, and it is unquestionably a real place, an actual destination, created by the God who created all of the universe, places known and unknown. Although God cannot be contained, Heaven is God’s home. It is the tangible substance that surrounds His throne. It is the place of intimate, unbroken fellowship shared by the three persons of the godhead, community united by perfected goodness, each giving glory to the other. Scripture speaks of Heaven from Genesis to Revelation, and only sometimes did the translators remember the capital H. The profuseness of joy, peace, and satisfaction cannot be fathomed amidst the brokenness of our own reality. But it is not only God’s home, it the place God calls all of us to, and the place He promises to His children. Jesus spoke to His disciples and He said, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with Me where I am.”
There are some for whom holidays and celebrations bring a deep longing for Heaven. Holidays and celebrations remind them of their loved one who is not present to celebrate the occasion with them. That loved one has already found the believer’s reality that to be absent from the body is to be at home with God. That spouse or child or parent who is “missing,” and whose absence creates a longing for reunion, that spouse or child or parent truly is not “missing,” even though they are absent from our own reality. “Missing” implies we have no knowledge of their whereabouts, and that simply is not true. They have found the home God is preparing for all of us, and they have entered into all of its perfections and they have embraced a fullness and potential that is not possible here. Yes, we will grieve, but let us not grieve as those without hope, for we do have hope, because Heaven is real, and hope is real. The longed for reunion will happen, and those who grieve will fully set aside their grief when they walk through the doors of eternity into the home God is preparing for us.
But for now, we wait. And in waiting, it is okay to long, to yearn, to desire with the deepest parts of my being. Why? Because this earth, this place, this southern California or this Miami, Florida, or this cozy little house in the mountains or at the beach, truly is not home. And in one of our tomorrows, Jesus will welcome us to the home He intended for us all along. And sometime in eternity, we will look back, and we will realize, that our “waiting” really wasn’t long at all. Heaven. Spell it with a capital H.
(Related Bible reading: John 14:1-6)
– Bev
