Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: christian fiction

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 2

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 2

    (In case you are just joining us: https://talkofjesus.com/grief-a-picture-of-heaven-prologue/)

    In days long past I had experienced love at first sight.

    The initial picture of my lover and the happy endings of our life had been one of grand ceremony; great recognition and perfection of a bride, processing down that long aisle, adored by her groom and taken away for a new life together in a new and different place; for a life we could live together, ‘happily ever after,’ as the endings of fairy tales tell.

    Returning to the stuff of real life, that’s not how it had turned out.

    It’s really a great mystery how two souls become joined together as one.

    It seems as though those in love begin a new life, where the other becomes part of them. But if one should leave or die, a part of the other remains with them…

    I thought of it on that memorable ‘day of the funeral.’

    I also thought of ordinary things – daily things like shopping for groceries.

    I found myself (of all places) in a little grocery store back home many years ago. We were buying some ordinary things like bread and cheese and milk, when out of nowhere I had asked the grocer (in those days, he was the owner), “Why is the extra sharp cheese, extra expensive?” (I had thought it a clever way to complain of his prices.)

    He replied: “Because it costs me more. It takes more time to age than that mild cheese in your basket and the farmer at the dairy charges me more for his time. Anything else I can help you with?”

    I was a little embarrassed after this. I sheepishly shook my head, no. Then he smiled and said, “No charge for my time.”

    I guess it was on my mind as I sat there, as pleasant distraction away from the ceremony at hand. Besides, just yesterday I had remembered it at the supermarket when I bought extra sharp cheddar cheese for the same price as the mild. ‘I guess it’s the cost of some truck driver’s time,’ I thought, which must be the same for both.

    Somehow we always seem to have a wrong picture of what things cost to others.

    … To be continued

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 1

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 1

    A Picture of Heaven Chapter 1 (of 14 episodes)

    (Just in case you missed it, here is a link to the Prologue,)

    The day and the weeks of that time had begun like any other day in any other week of any other month of any other year.

    I say that they had begun that way, not because this day was any different, but because it was the same. We existed from day to day and week to week, alongside the same people in the same places doing the same things.

    Some of us went to church when the spirit moved us. Some of us went to church every week (some even more). And some of us would never be caught dead among people who tell us that ‘we have to change’ or we would ‘never get to Heaven.’  But as it turns out on this ordinary day, we all ended up at church.

    I recognized some of the people as they walked in the door. They were family and friends; young and old (with some even older). Their smiles were reserved and their embraces seemed more in need of embrace than gifts of hugs. A few held back tears.

    We were not the planners of this hastily arranged reunion, but all of us had broken the ordinary busyness of that day and dropped everything from our sacred schedules to meet here at this church on a day like any other: the day of the funeral…

    That’s what everyone kept referring to, for weeks and even years afterward:

    Do you remember the day of the funeral?

    Yes. We all remembered it. I could not put it out of my mind.

     +

    Years ago when I had traveled in Europe I became awestruck at the towering Cathedrals and intricate worn detail of these monuments of religion constructed centuries earlier.

    It must have been something of this which brings Jews to speak with some reverence of the Temple. I had seen pictures of many magnificent temples with this same opulence, built like palaces of kings in many lands of other countries with other religions.

    What had struck me most about these palatial places of worship was that they seemed to be built more for tourists and pilgrims, than for the poor family around the corner.

    And my experiences prior to the day of the funeral seemed to confirm that churches have way too many seats for the number of people who show up.

    These churches did, however, often look grand enough for the formal processions of a King or a beautiful bride.

    ... To be continued

  • Grief: A Picture of Heaven – Prologue

    Grief: A Picture of Heaven – Prologue

    With real life comes real death.  With death comes grief.  Sometimes immediately, sometimes later… always lasting for loved ones.

    And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection. – Luke 20:36 NLT

    This story is not a real picture of heaven.  It is a story about grief.

    We need to look to scripture to see the true picture.  We need to READ what the Bible has to say about the NON-fiction of eternal life.  We will one day see the urgency of understanding the picture of the alternative beyond death of this decaying flesh.  This story, however, is fiction.

    I tell A Picture of Heaven as wandering thoughts about death which do ambush us from time to time.  The origin of my wanderings emanate from at least one real life/death experience.

    A little more than thirteen years ago, we sat through a similar scene… when my former wife died.

    Not too long before her death, a friend and neighbor had met with instant death in an accident.  One evening his daughter, our babysitter, pointed toward a star in the sky as my daughter looked up and comforted her with the thought that every time she looked up she could see her dad.

    It was not a Biblical picture for our six year old daughter, but it was helpful.

    When you and I want a true picture of heaven we must look much higher than our own experience to a God we cannot see and do not understand except through scripture and prayer.

    Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way anyone will get to heaven, where there will be no more death and no more tears – NO grief.

    I would like to point you to the place where you fit in the scene of our 14-part serial story.  At one time or another you may experience most of these perspectives.

    What will you do now…

    to face the eventual last episode of your story?

    You might want to pause for reflection and prayer as you consider each episode.

    To be continued… God willing… tomorrow, 3 September, 2013, M-F until the conclusion.

     Job 10:9

    Remember that you made me from dust—
    will you turn me back to dust so soon?