What If My Mom Has Been Having Adventures in Heaven?
How do you imagine your loved ones in Heaven? What are they doing with our Lord?
When I was younger, I thought the best part of Heaven would be seeing people I loved again and throwing my arms around Jesus.
I still think that.
If you’ve lost someone important to you, there is a part of your heart that never stops looking forward to that reunion. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it catches you by surprise in the middle of an ordinary day. You’ll hear a song they loved or see something they would have laughed at, and for a moment you wish you could pick up the phone and tell them about it.
For me, those thoughts usually drift toward my mom or my grandparents. I wonder what they would think about the kids now. I wonder what stories I would tell them. I wonder how long it would take before the conversation felt natural again, as if no time had passed at all.
For most of my life, that’s where my imagination stopped. Heaven meant reunion. It meant seeing the people I missed and never having to say goodbye again.
Lately, though, I’ve found myself thinking about something I had never considered before.
What if my loved ones aren’t simply with Jesus?
Of course I believe they are with Him. In fact, that’s exactly how I have always imagined Heaven. When I thought about my mom or my grandparents, I pictured them worshiping, rejoicing, and experiencing the presence of God in ways we can barely comprehend.
I never wondered whether my grandpa had favorite places in Heaven or whether my mom had adventures she couldn’t wait to tell me about. It never occurred to me to imagine them laughing over a game, walking through a garden, learning something new, or setting off to explore another corner of God’s creation.
I don’t mean that in a theological sense. I mean it in a practical sense. I always imagined my loved ones fully alive with Christ, but my imagination tended to stop there. I thought about reunion. I thought about worship. I thought about being in God’s presence. I rarely thought about what daily life in Heaven might actually be like.
The older I get, the less that picture makes sense to me.
The God who created the entire universe from oceans and mountains and giraffes and music does not strike me as someone who specializes in boredom. Everything He has made overflows with creativity. Even on this side of eternity, there are entire lifetimes worth of things to discover. If Heaven is greater than anything we can imagine, why would discovery suddenly stop there?
That thought changed something for me.
Instead of imagining a reunion, I started imagining an introduction.
What if one day I see my mom and, after the tears and hugs and joy of finally being together again, she says, “Come on. I want to show you something.” What if she has stories to tell? What if she has adventures she’s been waiting to share? What if there are places she loves that I know nothing about yet?
What if God has spent years delighting her with surprises that I haven’t even begun to imagine?
The thought of seeing my loved ones again brings me comfort. The thought of discovering their heavenly world brings me wonder.
Maybe that’s why I became so attached to the idea of The Father’s House while writing Jonner and the Stuffed Animal Mansion. The more I thought about hallways and doors and adventures waiting behind them, the more I realized I wasn’t really imagining architecture. I was imagining possibility.
I was imagining a Heaven where people remain wonderfully themselves.
A Heaven where Grandpa Gus still lights up when someone mentions airplanes.
A Heaven where Uncle Mitch has somehow found a way to celebrate Christmas all year long in Greece.
A Heaven where the people we love are not diminished versions of themselves but fuller versions, more alive than they have ever been.
I don’t know exactly what Heaven looks like. Scripture gives us glimpses, but not blueprints. Maybe there are no hallways. Maybe there are no doors. Maybe there are no mansions designed around airplanes or Christmas lights or stuffed animals. But maybe there are.
I have a hard time believing that eternity with a creative God will be less personal, less joyful, or less surprising than the world He has already made.
And if one day I find myself standing beside my mom while she excitedly shows me something she has discovered with Jesus, I suspect the reality will be far more beautiful than anything I managed to imagine while sitting here writing about it.
Ephesians 3:17–20 (NIV)
“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”