Heaven.

There have been a multitude of claims made-
claims made by sharmans, theologians, philosophers, authors...
claims made by children who imagine and adults who wonder...

Claims about the existence of the subconscious after the act of dying.
Claims about the existence of... well.. a person... their continued reality in the absence of anything physical.

I've read the books.
I've watched the interviews.
I've wondered and imagined.

And I keep coming back to the same place.

I don't know how, or what it looks like in it's entirety..
I don't know enough to claim to be an expert.
But I do know something...
There is something that is so deeply tied into the make up of who I am, maybe of who we all are, that makes it imperative for us to lean towards this belief in an after.

An after this is done.
An after they have taken that last breath.
An after we have shrugged of the mortal.
An after we have said that final earthly goodbye.
Yes... There is a whisper soft call to believe in the after..

I believe in an after.
Many don't.
That's ok..

But I do.
I really do.

And I didn't find this belief in an after at the moment when my favourite people left this now.
There was no desperate scramble to latch hold of something nice and fuzzy that would provide me with comfort in the days and moments of my grief.

This deep seated belief in the after is not merely designed to be a pontoon for those who are exhausted in the throes of grief.
It is oh-so-much more.

We talked a lot about this after before he went there.
He was so comfortable talking about it.
He would wonder at the moment he would arrive..
He would laugh at the moment he would see her, my mother.. he would tell the boys how he would "kick Granny's butt" for so suddenly leaving us.

He would paint me a picture of what it would be like...
In his words..
In his way...

One day, months before he went there, we were driving out to the farm.
He loved to go the long way- up through the hills and along the dirt roads..
We came around a ridge and he pulled over to the side of the road.
He sat there for a while.
Quietly.
Just looking out across the little valley that was before us.
"There's going to be a road..like this..with big trees lining it. And when you come over the hill, you'll see the greenest ground. And at the bottom of the valley- that's where He's built my house.
It's going to have verandahs all around it and roses (he loved roses) all around it. And there's an entire workshop in it."
He turned to me..
"You know He was a builder right? And his dad was one too.... You never know... He might come around for a cup of tea and we'll make a table or something..."



He would paint me a picture of what it would look like...
And it was a stunning picture.
And I don't know quite how Heaven works, but I do know that Jesus promised to go and build a space for the ones would step into this after.
And I don't know quite how Heaven works..
I just know that it's real.
Like really real.
Because I can hear the whisper soft reassurance deep within me that it's there... just beyond the now, in the after.
 And today.. well. Today I can really hear it.
Today is one of those days..

Christmas is coming soon.
And Christmas is when this whole 'after' thing really became reality.
And not necessarily the Christmas we know and love, but that first Christmas.
The one where the Messiah, the perfect Lamb, moved into the neighbourhood of flesh and chaos.
That first Christmas when an eternal act of absolute adoration meant that I could access my after...
Meant that my after was now attainable.
Because a babe was born.
Because He walked the steps of this mortal toil and He knew grief and love.
Because He came to die a final death that would spell LIFE in the boldest brush strokes across the pages of mankind's history.

Yes..
Heaven touched earth in the most beautiful way the night a babe was born in a cow shed.
Yes...
I believe in Heaven.

I don't know quite how Heaven works.
I think about it a lot.
I talk to the boys about what they imagine it to be like.
Because isn't that maybe why we have an imagination..
To see a valley, with a house that holds a workshop, surrounded by a rose garden.
To see a reunion with a mum who shouldn't have left us when she did.
To see a little slip of a girl...dark curls cascading down her back as she dances and twirls and giggles in her perfection?


Yes.
I believe in an eternal, glorious after.
And I believe that it was purchased at a price.. the cost was such that it demanded perfection and sacrifice. Both something I couldn't afford and yet, it was purchased for me. By the One who holds my after, just like He holds my today.

Yes.
I believe in an after all of this, there is more.
That this is not all there is.
That there is an after that waits.

Yes.
I believe in Heaven.