She reminded me of a tiny Scarlet O’Hara descending a grand staircase in her all white two story colonial home of which the first floor is a large candy and ice cream store.
The elderly man at the cash register said, “She’s my granddaughter. She lives upstairs.”
He smiled when I said, “Can you imagine a little girl living in a candy shop. She must be in heaven.”
“She gets her share,” he said.
That must be like an astronomer living on a mountain top or a birdwatcher living in an aviary or a scholar living in a library or a vegetarian living in a tropical garden.
Our eccentric New England poet, Emily Dickinson, closes her famous poem “Some Keep the Sabbath by Going to Church” with the marvelous thought. “So instead of getting to heaven at last – I’m going all along.”
Wouldn’t it be grand if that were so for all of us? I’m sure it is God’s plan. Heaven is not some pie in the sky idea for sometime in the future. In John 5:24 Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” Please notice the tense. It is a fiat accompli. For those wise enough to accept His offer going to heaven will be a matter of changing address and getting a new picture on one’s driver’s license.
In John 10 Jesus promises us the abundant life. Again this is not only in the future but now. Once we grasp this marvelous concept we begin to live a life better than being a little girl living in a candy store.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 18, 2015
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org