I’ll meet her before you do, you know.”
When my grandmother said this to me, it made me blink hard. Maybe I wasn’t used to having others refer to our baby in a way that was so concrete, or maybe I was still getting used to hearing her talk candidly about her impending transition from her earthly home to her heavenly home. Either way, her statement caught me with my defenses around my knees.
I may have cried a little as her simple words burned into my memory.
That was nearly four years ago.
During a visit last month, my now ninety-one-year-old grandmother asked, “What was her name again?”
“Who, Grandma?”
“The baby you lost.”
Scarlett, Oliver, Ruby. I reminded her of all three.
Grandma’s slowing down, finding it hard to get out of bed. Her body causes her grief as she contends with its aches and malfunctions. I can hear hunger in her voice when she talks about heaven. She misses Grandpa. Her eyes hang wistful over a tired smile.
I have thought about heaven more during the last four years than my entire life put together. Even now I try to imagine Grandma being greeted by one of our little ones—or all of them, perhaps. Who knows?
Truthfully, I’ve never understood heaven and have often been confused by the mixed messages preached from pulpits and espoused in popular Christian fiction. The children’s Bible answers and Sunday school lessons have left me wanting. Although I’ve done my fair share of wrestling through all sorts of theological issues, I have been mostly content to leave heaven in the “mystery” box to be figured out later (or not). But since losing my own babies, this has slowly begun to shift.
I don’t know what heaven is like. I suspect it’s not much like what most of us imagine. The Bible is full of beautiful imagery and metaphor, and yet so much mystery still surrounds this other place or dimension—our true home. The best description (outside of scripture) I’ve ever considered is one I first heard at eight years old and have read many times since:
The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”1
I imagine that heaven looks a lot like this earth we love, but truer and deeper, and that somehow it will be entirely different and entirely familiar all at the same time. And yes, I admit some of this imagination has been triggered by a child’s storybook. But it’s also been spurred by the Bible. Consider this passage:
Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.
Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation!
And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness.
Her people will be a source of joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and delight in my people.
And the sound of weeping and crying
will be heard in it no more.
No longer will babies die when only a few days old.
No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life.
No longer will people be considered old at one hundred!
Only the cursed will die that young!
In those days people will live in the houses they build
and eat the fruit of their own vineyards.
Unlike the past, invaders will not take their houses
and confiscate their vineyards.
For my people will live as long as trees,
and my chosen ones will have time to enjoy their hard-won gains.
They will not work in vain,
and their children will not be doomed to misfortune.
For they are people blessed by the LORD,
and their children, too, will be blessed. (Isa. 65:17–23)
A Glorious Hope
As I’ve begun to learn about the new heaven and the new earth—the renewal of all things—that the Bible describes in both the Old and New Testaments, many (if not most) of my ideas about what heaven is have been found to be flimsy under scrutiny. The absence of white fluffy clouds seems glaring in scripture, and in its place is a whole slew of references to the renewal of all things, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus and culminating with God making his home among his people—here! On earth! As heaven and earth collide and merge and become reborn in Christ!2 (Yes—so many exclamation marks!)
In Matthew 19:28, when Jesus talks about the world being made new, the word is sometimes translated as “regeneration.” The original language here was the Greek word paliggenesía, which literally means “genesis again.”3 This same word is used in Titus to refer to what happens to new believers:
He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)
This regeneration, renewal, or rebirth that Jesus and Paul speak of is for the world and for us—for all creation, heaven and earth.
Of course this isn’t the book in which to unpack thousands of years of church tradition, worldview, or eschatology (much more qualified theologians can help you with that—please see the resource section in appendix F). But as we’re faced with our present grief, loss exposes an opportunity for us to examine “life after life” as we know it in a way that elicits tremendous hope. N. T. Wright calls this the “after, after life”—our hope in the age to come, which is more than simply being in the presence of God, it is seeing the cosmos re-created to its original design.
Honestly? This makes me both extremely uncomfortable (because it reveals how much I have yet to learn) while also leaves me brimming with new, hopeful anticipation. (Isn’t life the most grand and curious learning curve?)
While some of these concepts feel so new to me, they also feel familiar. Think about a moment in your life when you felt a taste of heaven on earth: the edge of a cliff overlooking a stunning vista, the declaration of your wedding vows, a wave of transcendent worship during a concert, a quiet stillness by candlelight where you sensed the nearness of the Holy Spirit, the breath of your newborn nephew, the flutter of your heart when you know you’ve just heard a word from the Lord, a phone call from a friend when you wondered if anyone recognized your pain, a feast encircled with laughter and rich wine in Tuscany. These moments feel like heaven on earth because they are—they are the kingdom of heaven breaking into our now.
We recognize this “heaven” in Jesus as he spent his whole ministry demonstrating what heaven on earth looks like. Jesus often talked about the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) as he taught his followers and ministered to others.4 For you and I, it’s probably easiest to imagine the “kingdom” he referred to as an actual location, because our earthly kingdoms have geopolitical boundaries and places. And yet, as I’ve begun to study scripture more seriously, I’ve started to see that Jesus was talking about a way of life, not just a place where that life exists. He came to show us heaven, not just take us there.
I’ve spent a great deal of time showcasing Jesus’s ministry in previous chapters—always he’s demonstrating what the kingdom of heaven looks like: healed bodies, saved souls, freedom from bondage, broken things being made whole, storms calmed, suffering alleviated, religion turned upside down by radical love, union with God. These are all glimpses of heaven breaking into the present. What Jesus made manifest is still happening and will continue to unfold as he heals all of creation.
Am I saying that we don’t “go” to be with Jesus when we die? No, I am not. Scripture gives us good reason to believe our babies are in the presence of God—divine Love—even now. The language we use for death fails us; these babies aren’t dead, they aren’t lost. They are alive and found in him for eternity. We grieve their loss to us here and now, yes, but we grieve with hope because we know there is more to the story.
Not only are they with Jesus now but there is more to come—the after, after life—a time when all is made new, the new heaven and the new earth established when Christ returns to set the world right and re-create all things. We won’t be strumming harps, bored for an eternity. Like Isaiah 65 says, we’ll be planting vineyards and building houses, and our work won’t be in vain. Our children will flourish. We will no longer suffer pain. We’ll have no reason to weep, no relationship or body broken, no unrealized God-given dreams. God has the final word. He has always been and will always be for us.
A Divine Homesickness
Since I’ve lived overseas from my nation of origin for most of my adult life, I’m accustomed to feeling a bit “other.” I’m the one with the accent; I’m the one with the head tilted, wondering why my order of “lemonade” will land me a Sprite on the table. By the time you read these words I will have taken the oath to become Australian, so I won’t technically be able to call myself an “alien” anymore, but one thing I’ve realized in these almost twenty years of foreign post codes is that my passport may be American (or, soon, Australian), but my citizenship is in heaven, and my home is in Jesus.5
Our citizenship is lodged somewhere completely other (heaven) and also completely here (earth). The kingdom of God is at hand, and the kingdom of God is still coming—the paradox of the now and not yet, the mixed metaphor of roots and wings—our longing to burrow down and our longing to fly—it’s Jesus calling us home, reminding us that we’re still aliens, exiles, sojourners on the way there even as we find ourselves in him here. The homesickness of the human heart teaches us to identify the eternity God’s buried within.6
Maybe that’s exactly why we will always hold a hint of feeling like we don’t belong—because we don’t. Well, not entirely, at least. God has put a taste for heaven in our souls, and when we pause long enough to notice, we can feel it—this thing within that yearns for a home we’ve never set foot in yet have always been. What lies before us holds more beauty and possibility than the deepest, truest form of earth we can imagine—it’s better than Narnia by a thousand times.
The writer of Hebrews calls it a city which is to come;7 the apostle John gives us just enough vision to leave us dripping with desire:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:1–4 ESV)
The picture John paints in Revelation is powerful, because it’s not just some new place we’ll be whisked away to once we take our last breath on earth. It’s much more profound than that. He’s painting a picture of a renewed creation—a resurrected, regenerated, re-created creation—where heaven and earth collide and there is no relational division between God and humankind. He’s speaking of the day in an age to come where “on earth as it is in heaven” is not just a petition for what could be but a declaration of what is.
Just like when Paul says God makes us into a “new creation” when we come to faith in Jesus,8 so heaven and earth will be “born again” (made new) and renewed by the same resurrection power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. The same word for new (kainos) is used to describe believers as a new creation in Christ and for the new heaven and earth described in Revelation 21, and means new in quality or fresh and unused.9
N. T. Wright has often said that the resurrected Jesus is not only the model for what’s to come but also the means in which we get there. Jesus came to show us what being renewed looks like, and in the age to come, all those who are in him will experience this same resurrection.10
The new heaven and new earth will be established here, where God will dwell among us, just as he intended in Eden. Skye Jethani describes it as “neither an ethereal heaven nor a replaced earth. It is the union of heaven and earth into a restored and glorified cosmos occupied by God and his people.”11 There will be no more tears, no more death, no more division, no more weeping, no more suffering, no more brokenness. All will be made whole.
What glorious hope we have in that! Jennifer Dukes Lee says “hope is a midwife, helping us to breathe,”12 and she’s exactly right. We grieve now with hope because we know death (and the pain associated with it) does not have the final word. Life does.
Even now, as you consider the longing in your heart for your baby, know that your longing points to the kingdom of heaven—the realm of Jesus where all follows him in renewal. It exposes your desire for things to be set right, made whole, restored. And that desire is good. Let your longing for your baby be a signpost to reveal the way of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven, where there are no tears and where death is swallowed up once and for all. And then live like heaven is breaking through right here, right now. Because it is. It’s coming through him in you.
Is there still a lot the Bible doesn’t explicitly say about how or when the renewal of all things will take place? Of course! Like the apostle Paul, we must admit, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely” (1 Cor. 13:12). But although we see things imperfectly, there’s enough evidence in scripture to give us confidence that this is not just wishful thinking—this is our Christian assurance, our hope: All things will be made new. There is more in the age to come than sitting on clouds with our harps.
God has eternity to redeem our suffering, and it will be more beautiful than we ever thought possible.
But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him.” (2:9 ESV)
“I Don’t Want Her to Be in Heaven”
A few weeks after my first miscarriage, I asked Ryan if he would listen to a couple of songs that had been ministering to my soul as I grieved. One was called “Amy’s Song” by Jonathan David Helser, and the other was “I Will Carry You” by Selah. Both were about little baby girls gone too soon.
These songs helped wrap words around what I was feeling while also validating the sorrow I felt and the reality of both the suffering and hope that I carried. I would play them when I felt I needed a good cry to release all of my big, inexpressible emotions. I still play them every now and then to remember.
When the songs finished playing for Ryan, he sat in the quiet, head hung low, tears carving down his neck.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” I baited, hoping for some sort of verbal response. But he just cried in silence.
“I don’t want her to be in heaven,” he finally responded. “I don’t want Jesus to look after her. I wanted us to look after her.”
And this is the tension in which we live: We have the hope of a life with our babies one day, but that day is not now. There will come a time when Jesus makes all things new, and we are able to enjoy life, free of suffering and heartache, the way God always intended for us. But that time is not now. And we ache to know: What exactly does this hope mean for the tiny souls we never got to hold in our arms? Will we have a chance to mother them in the age to come? Friend, I don’t know the details of that. But we can cling to this: These tiny souls are held by the presence of Jesus now, and when he makes all things new, he will make all things new. How could this exclude our little ones?
Although I’m still learning about the resurrection and the implications for us in the age to come, we have every reason to believe that our little ones are a part of God’s great renewal plan. They are not excluded from God’s intent to wipe our tears, dwell with us, and give us life without the threat of death when heaven and earth are made new and he establishes his reign among us.13
Death Could Not Hold Him Back
There was a cemetery near our old house that I used to walk to while still in the thick of grieving Scarlett. I would weave among the headstones, wishing I had one to call our own, until one day I found ours.
A sandstone cross stretched well over my head but at its feet a crumpled Mary engulfed the base. Her robes, also carved in sandstone, connected her from the cross to the earth, and her arms wrapped around the place where her son’s feet emptied of the blood she had helped create. I can’t remember the name or epitaph carved into that stunning memorial, but I will never forget the sense of identification I felt with the heartbroken mother of our Lord. She hadn’t just lost Jesus, the Messiah; she had lost her son. As I considered her loss in light of mine, I realized grief connected her to both heaven and earth there among the folds of her robe. I saw it with my own eyes in the statue, but I felt it in my soul.
Our humanity and his divinity are intertwined, and nothing helps us feel that connection like the thin place between life and death—the liminal space—that grief introduces us to.
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus remind us that beautiful things will rise out of our ashes, and we’ll find an invitation that’s been there all along—new possibilities, a summoning to trust and let go, opportunities pulling us into hope. There is one whose job description is to steal, kill, and destroy, but that isn’t God.14 God takes what is meant to destroy us and turns it inside out. Instead of an end, death is transformed into a beginning. A tomb into a womb. New life. Grace like Scarlett. A redemption story that makes a mockery of what the evil one hoped would be our undoing. It starts with our resurrected Jesus and continues as we live our lives in him.
It’s a miracle, truly, this upside-down way of Jesus. This God making all things new. This promise we can hold on to even while the whole earth around us is still groaning for deliverance between what is and what will be. And we don’t just survive this in between, biding our time until some arbitrary future date when all is set right. We participate in the new creation now by living into the kingdom, setting our eyes on things above and things around us, and allowing the Spirit to heal us as we work together to see the whole earth healed and reconciled unto Jesus. We embrace our belovedness and give ourselves to love others even while still being healed ourselves. We bake the casserole. We write the bereavement card. We open our doors. We share our stories. We tell of his goodness. We worship while we weep. We rejoice while we give thanks. We pray for healing. We invite others to know the astonishing hope we have. We participate in his new creation and live heaven right here, right now. We dive deep and then resurface, transformed and transforming.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Death could not hold him back. And it won’t hold him back from you now. We have so much hope, such good news—a Love nothing can separate us from.