Paradise

 

Well, I have finally seen, with my own eyes, crystal clear waters and sugary white sand beaches. 

I took my sister on a quick trip last week.  Our father loved the lower latitudes, but neither of us had ever been much south of, say, Orlando, Florida.  We went a bit farther this time.....

Do you wonder what heaven is like? I think it's entirely incomprehensible, something that our feeble brains can't understand, some dimension that is more beautiful and full of goodness than anything we could imagine on earth.  

I have no idea if heaven looks like this, but this is truly beautiful. I believe that all of the best things on earth--our most loving relationships, the most striking natural landscapes--are pale shadows of What's To Come.  So heaven probably isn't like this; it's probably much, much better.

The clarity of the water! It astonished me.  It's real! I kept thinking.  It's really real!

I think maybe that's what people say when they reach heaven.  The rumors are true! they probably think.  It wasn't photoshopped. It wasn't made up. It's real, and it's more beautiful in person than I could have ever expected. 

That's what I think about when I think about this beach, where I could hardly talk all day, I was just so astonished that it was, in fact, really real. 

What is my father seeing now?  I have no idea.  But I think he sees things clearly, as they truly are, at long last. 

For now we see through a glass darkly, and one day we will see face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Yes and amen.