"When We All Get To Heaven"

There is an old church song Ian and I used to sing when we were growing up at the Radcliff Church of Christ in Radcliff, Kentucky.  If I close my eyes, I can hear it being sung by Adelle McKinney loud and clear, and we were expected to raise our voices loud and clear as well.  

It has new meaning to me as I sit at my kitchen table writing this blog while my husband and babies lie sleeping above me.

It's chorus, "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, when we all see Jesus, we will sing and shout the victory" is a portrait of how I feel this morning with my husband and children all at home and safe under the roof of our family home…and I "sing and shout the victory" of the gift of them

I don't say that lightly because our family has worked hard these past years to become bonded and one…the dad in our home is not the one who birthed these children, but you would never know it.  The home is not the one in which these children were raised, but when you pass through the threshold of our "love lives here home" you would never believe it.  

Proof that our mighty God, the maker of all things "home" can take anything, anyone, any situation and make it beautiful.  I know this truth because I live it every day and I see it in the faces of Ian and Madison and Kenton and Johnson.

The verses of this old, old hymn written by Eliza E. Hewitt and Elizabeth D. Wilson in 1898 speak to my very soul with such tender mercies…

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing His mercy and his grace,

In the mansion bright and blessed, He'll prepare for us a place.

While we walk that pilgrim pathway, clouds will over spread the sky

But when traveling days are over not a shadow or a sigh

Let us then be true and faithful trusting, serving every day

Just one glimpse of Him in glory will the toils of life repay

Onward to the prize before us soon His beauty we'll behold

Soon the pearly gates will open we shall tread the streets of gold

When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be

When we all see Jesus we'll sing and shout the victory

I am learning….

That if we pay attention while walking on this earth, God will use scripture, people, songs, situations….life….to teach us

To show us

To remind us

That, this earthly home is not our home, but rather, it is the shadow of what will be our home

…..some day

We are not going to achieve perfection within the walls in any home while living on this earth

We are not all going to have the perfect family

The perfect marriage

The perfect health

The color of our skins may not all be matching

The bloodlines of our bodies may not be in unison

Not everyone will attend the same church to worship

Nor will everyone find God within the bounds of a building

But one thing I am learning as a personal truth…

If I wake up from my slumber on a morning

If breath fills my lungs

And, I am able to move my legs over to the side of the bed

If I am able to rise up and spend a new day dawning on this earth…..

God wants me to think on Him

To sing His mercies and His grace

And, to remember that the point of my rising to life this day is not to spend it in selfish ambition pursuing single pursuits which will make me happy

But rather….

It is to remember….

That only in Him will I find real peace, real joy, real love

And, that with that love, I am to take it and use it and do my very best with it to share it with others around me, every day, in every way, at all times, to all people

So that, they, too, may see the shadow on this earthly planet of the greater place He is building for us

With Him

In heaven

And, He wants us "ALL" to get there…..every single one

So that "when our traveling days are over….and our work on earth is done"…..

We have peace in knowing to where it is we will go….

"onward to the prize before us, we shall tread the streets of gold"

Where when we see the face of Jesus….we will sing and shout in Victory!"

So, as I type on my modern-day computer words expressing the feelings of my heart knowing that above me lie the four most precious people in my life, I am reminded…

Of Him

And, of that song learned long ago as a little girl sitting in a wooden pew

Envisioning the "love of Jesus"……

And being grateful for the songs He gave me,

The children He sent me

The Husband he designed for me

All shared with me to remind me that one day….some day….on a day…..we will all

Together

See Jesus

And, what a day of rejoicing that will be!!

Blessings,

Lesa