Last Easter Sunday, I baked a lemon cake for a small group of friends gathering at my place to read the Easter story. We followed along in our Bibles, stopping to discuss interesting points as they struck us, then when it was over, we joined hands and prayed for healing and forgiveness for ourselves, our families, and our friends who couldn’t be with us that day.
After everyone left, I went online and my eyes fell on this quotation, which I had never read before:
For the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be forever with Him. When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive. So it is with Christ. In this world our contact with Him is shadowy, for we can only see through a glass darkly. … The best definition of it is to say that heaven is the state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him anymore.1
It deeply touched me, and out of the blue, the thought came: Send it to your friends.I didn’t know if it would impress anyone else as it had me, but I copied it into a group email with a simple greeting wishing everyone a happy Easter and telling them that I was praying for them.
I hadn’t even closed my laptop before I got a reply. A friend I hadn’t been in touch with for months thanked me for sharing the quote, saying it had come in the midst of a very trying day.
His reply was running through my mind as I took my dog for her evening walk. I remembered how close I had been to not following the nudge to send it. It’s just a little quote. Others probably won’t be touched by it the way I was. I remembered how often I’d thought that the things I did didn’t matter, weren’t big enough, or would mean more if they were more spectacular.
We turned the corner onto a quiet, residential street, and the moon—bright and full—appeared at the end of the road, as if it were our destination. I was suddenly filled with joy. Easter is a time to celebrate resurrection and new life, and that night it felt like I was the one with a new life
- William Barclay (1907–1978)↑