5th December

So will there be such a thing as Titanium White in heaven? Having said that, going by Jane’s leftover oil paint it wouldn’t stay white for very long if she got her hands on it! She was a colourful person. But isn’t that how we see heaven anyway? Yes I’m lost in my daydreams of heaven once again. It’s where I find peace, and as that’s where Jesus lives that shouldn’t be a surprise should it? Thinking of Jane’s extraordinary life in heaven makes me happy. Imagining what she’s up to, what she’s thinking and all the rest of it somehow lessens the distance between us. And it helps me get through the tortuous journey of grief. But what is it really like there?

I recently heard an interesting sermon illustration which helped in my understanding of heaven. Imagine your life, the day before you were born, and pretend that someone was able to communicate with you in the womb. So something big would be happening very soon that would change your life forever; you’re going to be born into the big wide world and this is what you should expect to experience… everything will be very bright with lots of light, you’ll breathe something called air and, by the way, it will be rather noisy. Now of course, as a baby still in the womb, you’ll have no concept of language and the guidance you’ve been given would be completely without any valid terms of reference. Nonetheless you try and make as much sense of it as you can anyway But as everything in the womb is more or less pitch black you would not understand what light is at all, and your lungs have always been filled with fluid so what is this stuff called air all about. Though when it comes to sounds and voices, well the womb is fairly noisy being situated just underneath a rather large fluid pump called the heart, so actually you believe you know exactly what to expect when you’re born don’t you?

We have no real language to describe the indescribable glory of heaven, the Bible simply calls it paradise with some suggestion that there will be some quite exotic creatures called angels and cherubim and seraphim… so there you go we’ve got it figured haven’t we? But we do know that God has his throne there and his son has actually revealed something of what to expect concerning the human inhabitants. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of perfect goodness, full of love, always truthful, absolute pure, never ever wrong and yes, he is all powerful Almighty God. So those who live with him will have to be like him… not so much power and omnipresence and things like that though! Just the goodness and love stuff. So today we have but the barest glimpse of the existence of heaven with very little more detail, though we do also have the requisite prescription for admittance. Only the followers of Jesus Christ who walk along a narrow path with a narrow gate will be allowed in. But for many there will be a day when almost in the blink of an eye the horror of death and dying will be transformed into the glory of heaven… I have total confidence that Jane took that step as she lived her life with the single focus of pleasing the Lord, seeking to walk through the narrow gate with her Saviour as her guide.

Matthew 7:13 ’You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.’ (NLT)