Talk of JESUS .com

Category: A Picture of Heaven

a picture of heaven - Fiction - a serial short story about grief
by Roger Harned
https://talkofJesus.com

A Picture of Heaven is about grief – a serial short story about death and eternal life as told by a man looking at a picture at a funeral drawn by a little girl. a fictional story about death fiction, heaven, grieving family and friends eternal life, as seen through the eyes of a child’s hope. – This first episodic short story on http://talkofJesus.com will begin on Monday, 2 September, 2013 with the prologue and continue through 14 episodes on Monday – Friday. (Of course you can always go back into the archive to read an episode you missed.
Stay tuned. PLEASE comment on the individual episodes with your thoughts, impressions, and witness. You may even have a witness of your own to SHARE WITH OUR READERS, who we pray will pass along our Christian Witness to their Social networks of ‘friends.’ Tune in EACH day, Monday – Friday. – Roger Harned

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 8

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 8

    My eyes drew back from their distant stare to gaze away from the picture. I gazed back from yesterday and looked intently toward the cross at the front of the church.

    I wondered: How does Jesus fit into all of this?

    I had never quite seen the connection between Jesus and all of the pictures of Heaven.

    Yea, I knew what the cross meant; but it just didn’t connect the pictures of Heaven I had ever since my earliest visits to one church or another.  Not only was it not connected, but what I did know didn’t seem to make any sense.

    —

    I guess my biggest pictures of heaven had come more from Christmas than Easter.

    My picture of Heaven was like the Christmas Eve broadcasts of Papal majesty with smoke and robes… and singing of the Hallelujah Chorus to God by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

    Then, of course, there was the seasonal hope of an angel who just wasn’t quite good enough to earn his wings until he could save George Bailey.

    And Catholics worship Mary, too… and Saints (with a capital “S”): Christopher, Valentine, Patrick (Irish Saint of parties), Francis and lots of statues.

    The angels in paintings and windows of their churches and Cathedrals all seemed to paint a picture of Heaven with a rather mythological glow.

    And the Mormon’s… (Aren’t they called: The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints?), with Joseph Smith and multiple wives.

    How are they any different than the followers of the Prophet Mohammed who had multiple wives?

    (Is that OK with God?)

    They celebrate Christmas and Heaven big time; just like the Catholics, with their old established church worship.

    (I think Catholics call it ‘liturgy’ and I know it used to be in Latin.)

    Mormons seem  like a modern christian church with a new “Book of Mormon” instead of the Bible to explain all this.

    Seems kind of like the two young men working out their own salvation at your door, with their magazine to explain the Bible.

    —

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 7

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 7

    I once went to a church with a friend, where eventually everyone was jumping up and down to the music. They were smiling and shouting like they were in heaven on earth.

    Thing is though, that we couldn’t stay there. My friend, as I recall, had a pretty tough time of it in ordinary life on regular days of the week.

    It really didn’t help me with my picture of Heaven. Her crayon drawing still looked like Rorschach’s black ink to me.

    —

    Another friend had once taken me to Sunday school at their more formal church. (Why anyone would want to get up earlier go to Sunday school, when we already HAD to go to school five days a week, I never did figure out.)

    Anyway, they had something they studied called a ‘catechism’ (or something like that). I thought about the first question and answer I had seen on their list:

    “What is the chief end of man?”

    The answer given is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.”

    —

    I guessed that since Heaven is where God is supposed to be, that it must be where we sing with choirs of angels and glorify God forever… IF we ever get there.

    I was never too excited about the prospect. ‘Isn’t there anything better to do,’ I thought?

    In any case, I had to come up with an answer for her, so finally I said,

    “Those stars by your Mommy look like a choir. I’ll bet they’re angels, singing to God.”

    There. I had said it. And we both stared at her picture of Heaven.

    —

    Then I managed a smile as I added this childish afterthought:

    “Does your mommy have wings?

    “NO. Of course not. She’s my mommy.”

    “My mommy doesn’t have wings. She’s NOT an angel; she’s just in Heaven with them. See this?”

    ‘What?’ I thought, as I looked toward the small dot on her picture to which she pointed.

    “That’s an angel with wings,” the little girl explained. An angel is different.”

    (I didn’t see it.)

    Then she further pointed out of these small dots (that all looked like stars to me):

    “These are angels. SEE? They’re all one color. But THESE are souls of humans who have died. I made them all different colors, but not the same as angels.”

    “Wow,” I acknowledged. “I didn’t know that.”

    “I’ll bet your Mommy is shining brighter because she is so proud of you.”

    “No.” And she looked to her daddy, whose lap she crawled up on.

    “Daddy is proud of me too; but right now, he doesn’t feel so much like shining.”

    (Children can be brutally honest sometimes, and I was a little embarrassed to have been the cause of her honesty.)

    “Besides,” she continued, “Mommy always shined brightly when she talked about Jesus.”

    (Where did Jesus come into the picture, I wondered.)

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 6

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 6

    I swallowed hard and looked away as a tear came to my eye.

    Of course, I thought, maybe that’s her mommy in the casket. I had not had time for thought of all of the family connections of my lost loved one.

    Friends…dear and rare friends… become just like family. We don’t really know them. They have husbands, wives, kids, moms, grandpas, and all the rest.

    “We never really knew him,” I had just heard someone say either of the living relative or another family member who had died.

    That’s right. We don’t really know them, do we?

    So when the little girl said of a bright star on a picture of Heaven: “That one’s my Mommy,” I had not expected it.

    “She’s not REALLY brighter than the other stars…” the little girl said, as I gathered my emotions and attention back into the room. “My mommy’s star is just brighter for me so that I can always see that she is still there.”

    I thought about it. And I thought of this little motherless child, who now would no longer have the nurturing embrace of her mother for all of those moments in life when you really need a hug.

    (I think another tear started from one eye.)

    Then she asked me another question about which I had no idea.

    —

    Do you know anybody in Heaven?

    Wow. I looked nervously about…

    “I don’t know.”

    I quickly tried to steer our conversation back into the stuff of crayons on paper. “Can we see in your picture?”

    “I don’t know,” she replied, “We’ll have to look.”

    We both examined her drawing a little more.

    “What do YOU see?” she asked as she nuzzled up to me.

    (A professional psychologist could not have asked a better question with a Rorschach ink picture.)

    I stared into her picture of Heaven…

    —