You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

I finally finished the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn.  It took me forever, not because it is a difficult read, but because I loved thinking and imagining Heaven after each chapter.  More than answering all of my questions about Heaven, which Alcorn did attempt to do, Heaven ignited my anticipation for the New Heaven and New Earth.  I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants a more Biblical understanding of Heaven or to one who has a Biblical understanding but wants their passion for it increased.

This isn't the tone of most of the book but let me share with you a short story that Alcorn shared in the second to last chapter.  This piece is variously attributed to Henry Scott Holland and Henry Van Dyke.


I'm standing on the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She's an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other.  Ant then I hear someone at my side saying, "There, she's gone."

Gone where?  Gone from my sight, that is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side.  And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.  Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she's gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, Here she comes!"

And that is dying.


"If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next."  C.S. Lewis.

So read the book if you'd like, but one way or another I invite you to be heavenly minded, I implore you to think about life and death in a Biblical way and let that Heavenly thinking affect your earthly life today.