If There Are Oceans In Heaven, We'll Be Waiting By the Sea

“Do you think there are oceans in heaven?”

 

He asks the question to our daughter.

“Well, God made the oceans, so he must like them.  And where else would he put the dolphins and whales?”

Because this place, it’s about as close to heaven as we’ve been.

This place feels almost like home, tasting salt spray and sunshine-warm skin and glorious blue ocean-sky days.

 

All our family is gathered here, twenty-eight of us, gathered in this house by the sea sharing time away and together.  Four generations of us drinking in awestruck sunrises and sandy sun-filled afternoons and dusky crab sleuthing evenings.

Card games and craft time and boogie boarding, surfing and sand castles.

 

We came to celebrate life.

After a year of losses, both grandmothers passing, we came to remember the joys of family. 

Great-grandpa, he’s 87, he came too, not even a year since the loss of his wife of more than fifty years. 

He played endless hours of water-ball in the pool with the great-grandkids.

“Grandpa! Grandpa! Throw it again!”

And he does.  And he smiles.

My husband’s father sent out the invitation to each of us, inviting each of his six kids and their children to come spend a week by the sea…for free.

Because loving dads just want to be with their children and they love giving them good gifts.

And who could turn down that kind of gift?

And looking around this family table at dinner, the sunlight filtering low and warm through the window framed with bluest sea, I think, heaven must be a lot like this, the family all there.

 

And our Father in heaven, He loves us, and so he gave.  He gave us His Son.

Jesus said, “ Don't let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, and trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?  When everything is ready I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am.” John 14:1-3

The Father wants us to come to be with Him, to the place He has prepared for us.

There’s a place set at the table for you friend.

You’re invited to the party.

Listen, there’s a banquet prepared, and the family’s all here and we're waiting for you.

He sent out the invitation with your name written in His blood so that you may enter in to this celebration of the kingdom that has no end and life-forever in Christ.  He bought your ticket.

Are you coming?

It’s already been paid for just reach out and accept His gift.

Because we all come to God with empty hands.  Nothing to offer Him that could pay our way.  Just sin-scars and sorrows and our selfish lives and we open the undeserving hand to His glorious gift and just receive.

Receive it sister, He already paid for you.  There’s a sandy spot down by that sea brother, and the water is just right.

Because this life, it can be beautiful, but life forever, by that stunning sea of glass that surrounds the brilliant throne of the One True King, that is something you won’t want to miss.

Leaving this seaside haven, it reminds me, this place is not my home.

And even all the beauty that this world has to offer, pales in comparison to the Life to come in Christ.

Even a taste of heaven here is just another sign post pointing us to the truest life that is only found in Him.
The leaving only increases the longing for that which we can’t have here, heaven and fullest life eternal in the presence of Him that is our life.

But it causes us to look, long, hearts turned toward truest beauty and Life, for that which is and will be ours in Christ forever. 

And if there are oceans in heaven,

we’ll be waiting for you by the sea.