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.)