Heaven

Charlie read out a lot of ideas of what heaven is like. Several folk envisaged it being like a beautiful beach, waves crashing in and a lovely sunrise or sunset streaking the sky with colour. That’s definitely something I understand: for me it would be sitting on a cliff top in California watching the Pacific breakers roll in, pelicans diving for fish and surfers ‘hanging ten’. Others saw it in relationships, in food, in being curled by the fire with a good book.

Thinking about it more, I imagine heaven is being content in the moment. Not wallowing in a nostalgic look at ‘the way we were’ nor yearning for a future holiday or meeting or season. Finding joy in the here and now. 

We don’t want to lose sight of where we’ve come from, nor lose ambition for where we are going, but still, to rest in the moment. To appreciate the taste of that coffee (which is why I don’t like drinking coffee on the run in a take-out cup), to lose myself in the beauty of that Scottish sky – greys though they are, they are beautiful greys, to turn my hand to the work of the moment and do it with all my attention and ability. 

The real foretaste of heaven, though, is when we are gathered with other believers and lose ourselves in worship, and the room becomes a ‘thin place’ where the presence of God is tangible. May his presence transform your moments into tasty bites of heaven today.

The Hills and Heaven

I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? Not the hills, that’s for sure! But saying that, I often feel closer to God when out in nature, perhaps on hills, and his quiet reassuring voice of peace penetrates deeper there than in the melee of life.

I’ve been thinking about heaven, because I was asked to share some thoughts on what I consider to be ‘divine’ in ordinary life, and as I began to think I realised just how often heaven intersects earth and offers a sneak preview. There are the spectacular intersections which we can visit: I’ve been blessed to see the Grand Canyon and to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, and both of those experiences felt like ‘thin places’ where the consummate handiwork of God was visible in its raw form. Then there are the more everyday but still awesome sights of rainbows (I love them!), dramatic clouds and skies, herds of deer on the hills or a dog just let off the lead and running free. But I suppose these are just backdrops for what is really heaven, and that is when relationships are good, when love is visible and when words can be few. 

I lift my eyes to the hills, and remember who made them, and give him my love and my worship.

Doggy heaven...

How fragile is life!

Last night Dusty was fighting for breath in the living room. Tonight she is under the dirt on the grassy knoll at the back. This has been a challenging day. 

For Don and me, it has been pretty bleak and gruelling. When you have such a friend as Dusty was, it shreds you up inside to have to make the decision that she is beyond recovery and time to have the vet’s intervention. (How anyone could ever do this for a loved human being, I just don’t know. And yet the watching is horrendous, too.)

The vet intervened, kindly and gently, sensitive to the dog and also to us as we sobbed away. Within minutes, Dusty’s heaving chest stilled and she slipped ... where? Into doggy heaven? Into regular heaven? Into oblivion? I’ve no idea.

So as we showed Dusty our love in such an anguished way, half a world away my mother would soon awaken to 90^th birthday celebrations enjoyed with her birthday buddy, my son Jamie, his wife and Mhairi. 

Ironic to be celebrating life on a day when we have been facing death. But as the vet proved, it is a very short step from breathing and enjoying life, to ceasing from breathing and being dead. A very short step.

The Bible tells us that again and again. This is the day that the Lord has made. Whatever it holds, let’s rejoice and be glad in it, because this is the day we have. Or the moment we have. What lies around the corner, who knows? 

God does. ‘For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil, plans to prosper you...’

Whether on earth or in heaven, doggy or human.

Shotgun Shadow

Memories crowd my mind of better days, better times. Days when Dusty was young and full of life, riding shotgun in the car with me and sticking close as my shadow. This will be her last night as she is suffering with kidney failure and we will need to get the vet in tomorrow. 

I know she’s only a dog, but the anguish of deciding when to call the vet feels like treachery to the faithful friend I’ve laughed with so many times through the past thirteen years. Maybe only ‘doggy’ people will understand the shredded feelings we are all dealing with...

Only a dog? How could I have written that? She has been so much more than ‘just’ a dog over these years. Her frolics and antics have called forth laughter and joy from deep within me, even in troubled times. Her exuberance for living and the joy with which she greeted me every time I returned from wherever I had been will remain as a ray of sunshine in my mind forever. 

Do dogs go to heaven? I’ve been telling her that for the last three days, making a date to meet and throw sticks for fetching out of lochs and lakes, in a place where God has wiped away every tear and death is no more.

Roll on that blessed day. Your Kingdom come, o Jesus, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Meanwhile, we’re in the pits as the four-legged shadow is lengthening and beginning to fade.

Home

Home

Where is it, exactly?

When I’m in Scotland and talking about Long Beach, I still call it home, though I’ve not lived there for over 38 years. 

When I am in Long Beach and talking about Scotland, I often call it home – though when I do, I will be referring to people rather than a place. Mostly.

In Long Beach, I have memories from the beginning of my life, and those memories are pungent and powerful. When I return there, I sleep in the bedroom in which I grew up. I drive the freeways on which I learned to drive (on the RIGHT side of the road...). I enjoy the warmth which still I long for when back in Scotland. I go to the beach and gaze at the cold Pacific Ocean and watch the sunset, still familiar after all these years. All around are memories of my sister, my dad, our antics as we grew up. I visit cousins who still live in the area. I drink milkshakes and eat donuts (not too many of either lest I return super-sized...)

But, I miss those I left behind in Scotland. I miss the open spaces, the fresh air, the fresh garden vegetables. I miss my church family. I miss my friends. I am happy when it’s time to return ‘home’ to Scotland. And yet, I'm not.

At both airports, Aberdeen and LAX, I am in tears at leaving behind loved ones. Faces crumple as final hugs are given. Tears flow freely. 

And so today I am packing. Excited to be going home, to be going to see my beloved daughter and my beloved mother. Sad to be leaving my beloved Don, and my beloved sons and their wives/fiancé.

Yesterday in church we sang of our home in heaven. Home is where the heart is, the saying goes. I’ve given my heart to Jesus, and my home, my real home, is in heaven, and there are times I yearn for that home, because there are no airports in heaven. There are no tears, no sorrows, no partings. 

Once, over thirty years ago, as I sat clinging to my two older children, who were wee tots then, on an airplane in LAX, waiting to return to Scotland, I held back tears lest I set the kids off. We’d just said goodbye to my dear sister and parents. I was a new Christian, only just getting to know my Bible.

Very clearly God gave me the impression that I should look up Deuteronomy 31: verse 8. I didn’t know what it said. I didn’t really know where to find it. But I had a small Bible with me and I looked it up.

“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Ours is a God of comfort and love, who reaches out and holds us in our deepest valleys. 

I am encouraged to know that he is with me today, tomorrow, and forever.