you were holding your four yr old daughter on your lap and she looked at you through tears to say, "I'm sad because I want to be so close to God but I can't see Him. I want to go live in Heaven now."
i can tell you what i did..i cried with her. and i told her that she could live in heaven someday, but Jesus had a special job for her to do here..and there was only one Willow on the entire planet and the world needed her.
"But wouldn't it be good if you & I could go to Heaven NOW?", she implored.
and in my heart i whithered up like a scorched flower at the thought of my first baby girl gone from this world. i could barely breathe in that moment and even now tears won't stop falling.
i told her that i would go there with her someday, that lots of people would be there, that it would be wonderful to see God up close and sing songs to Him together..but that it's not time yet, and that this life here is a gift full of chances to love people who need hope. i told her, like i do daily, that she is here to be God's helper, and even though she can't see Him, she'll learn to feel Him with her and hear His voice in her heart..
even though i was alarmed to hear such heavy words from Willow, i also cried because of the sweetness and beauty of the heart they came from. she knows so little about God, yet loves Him with such earnestness. she longs to see Him, touch Him, and is willing to leave all that is familiar to her for the hope of heaven. over and over again, i learn about Jesus' heart through hers.
i would fight for her. i would die protecting her. i love her more than my own life, and hope that we'll have many decades of memories and loving relationship ahead of us...but i see that she already knows at four what many of us adults have forgotten: that there's something more valuable than prolonging our lives on this earth..to know God and be close to Him, and to share His love with everyone we can while we're here..and to long for the hope that lies beyond these human bodies..
"..as someone who wrestles with worry/anxiety to a degree that's sometimes paralyzing, I am learning that being free from worry doesn't come from a mind free of the possibility of loss; but from looking directly at loss, and what it means, and what it costs, and accepting God's grace in the middle of that scary moment. We are instruments of God's grace. It will flow through us in our times of ease and in our times of loss."( - taken from my comment to Ang on her blog today)
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To my little friend Willow,
It's nice to know that there are others who are hoping and waiting for something we can put our hands, ears, and eyes on.
Since we can talk to God about anything, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you told him that you would like to live in heaven now.
It was nice to find out that God feels the same way about being close to us. He misses us terribly when we are distant, and he really just wants to be close to us.
Since we and God both want the same thing, maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe God will help us bring some of his heaven to our world.
He's already left us little pieces to find. They are like a puzzle that needs to be put together so we can enjoy the whole picture.
When we put them together, things get more like heaven for everyone.
We can work on the puzzle and pray for help:
"let your heaven come.
Let things get put back together--right here where I live, so that it will be just like where you live..."
thank you both for saying exactly what Willow needed to hear. I will read these thoughts to her when we have the next chapter of that conversation..
uncle moron; a little late, but Happy Father's Day!
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