I have a problem with heaven

but it's not what I thought it was

I’ve searched my seminary books, had thoughtful conversations, opened my imagination…trying to wrap my brain around the concept of life after death. But there’s a part of me that I’ve been afraid to face — the part that keeps telling me that heaven can’t be real, and that maybe we made it all up to comfort ourselves. I decided to face that part of me and to listen to it, without arguing. Here’s what I discovered:

I have a problem with heaven not because of theology, and not because of a lack of imagination. I have a problem with heaven because heaven doesn’t help me with death. Heaven, or talks of it, dismisses the reality that my daughter is dead and she’s not coming back. It feels like denial.

I keep looking for where Jesus was in that moment when my daughter died. I need him to show me that he wasn’t there tauntingly holding back his power. I keep expecting him to turn the corner in my memory and say something like “peekaboo I was here the whole time, you just didn’t see me!” But he never does that. That’s too similar to “it’s okay, you’ll see her in heaven someday.”

But the other day I did experience Jesus — the real Jesus, not the peekaboo Jesus. This is what he showed me. He showed me that that moment of me holding my dying daughter in my arms is a moment that he will remember for all of eternity and it will never, never, never be okay. He told me that, just like Rachel’s tears will be remembered anytime Jesus’s story is told, he will never forget my tears (Jer. 31:15, Matt. 2:18). “It will never be okay, Kel. Not even heaven makes it okay.”

I do believe heaven is real. But it’s not a dismissive heaven. It’s a heaven led by Jesus who still carries the scars of death on his own body (John 20:20).

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A Poem: Why Do I Believe There’s A Heaven?

Because I’ve seen birth—
something invisible coming into being.

Because after Jairus’s daughter died,
Jesus said, “Do not be afraid. Trust me.”

Because Paul said death can’t
separate us from God’s love.

Because I pray
like there’s a heaven.

Because we sang, “somewhere over there rainbow
there’s a land that I heard of…”

Because sometimes I hear her voice
coaching me in how to parent.

Because the apostles
put their lives on it.

Because why should I live
if there isn’t?

Because when Mary and Martha said, “Lord if you had been here”
they couldn’t imagine it either.