“We should dwell with Thee in daily experience on earth so that we get accustomed to the glory of Heaven when we will dwell with Thee.” (Tozer)
My parents staked their lives on faith. But does faith work? To test the purity of gold, a drop of nitric acid is applied to a scratch on the touchstone of its surface. If the scratch remains, the gold is likely pure or very close to it. Likewise, there is a simple, practical test to determine the validity of faith. Does it stand the test of time? Does faith get us into Heaven?
I was privileged to be at my mother’s bedside during her final days on Earth. I sat transfixed as she journeyed back and forth to Heaven. I listened as she, lucidly, chatted with loved ones who’d gone on before and with her beloved Henry, who died 16 years earlier but now was at the foot of her bed!* As she “returned” to earth, she seemed a bit embarrassed having conversations with invisible beings. She was stretching the “silver cord” to its limits; her eagerness to join them was palpable.
My parents lived their lives on two levels – on one level, they raised their family and eked out a living on their small farm in western Michigan (present-day Country Dairy); however, deep inside, they were in constant communication with their Heavenly Father – in prayer, gratitude, adoration, song, worship and always “a gentle receptiveness to divine whisperings.” (Kelly)
“You are not of the world…I send you into the world.” (John 17) It seems God wants us to do more than just endure the world He created. While He wants us to enjoy it, He commands us to focus on the next world, “setting our minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)
My mother was homesick for Heaven, her true abode. Though Jesus spoke of mansions in Heaven, my mother said she would be happy with a cottage. So like her.
Being with her as she lay dying inspired me to write her memoir. I wanted to learn the secret of her peaceful, victorious death.
As I began the daunting task of documenting her life, I recalled the book, "The Great Divorce," by C.S. Lewis, in which he describes a busload of pilgrims on their way to Heaven, with an invitation to stay if they wish. Inside the Pearly Gates, they disembark and begin their tour when, suddenly, all but one turn back and clamber onto the bus. Shuddering and groaning, they return to their homes in Shadowlands, a grey, compromising, conciliatory community where they are comfortable. Their eyes could not tolerate the brightness of Heaven. They had not become accustomed to communing with their Lord on Earth.
I imagined the pilgrim who remained was my mother. Because she had walked and talked with her Lord “in the gardens” of her life on Earth, she was accustomed to the Light and felt at home in the presence of her Heavenly Father.
Lewis’s allegory changed my view of salvation and Heaven: God doesn’t shut anyone out; however, we decide, by the choices we make at crucial moments in our lives, whether we’ll opt for faith or doubt, acceptance or resignation, love or its opposite, fear, and whether we’ll submit our lives in obedience to God’s will or exist in compromise and tolerance in Shadowlands.
I took my hoe and “dug” deeply into the soil of my mother’s life, identifying five defining moments when she came to a crossroads in her journey - a fork in the road - when she came to the end of herself.
Ellen experienced loss, suffering and pain in dealing with the challenges of farm life; losing a daughter; becoming estranged from her youngest son, who, at 18, went to Vietnam, survived the jungles, but was affected by the horrors of war and unable to return home; Henry’s death; and her failing health, yet she never forsook her Jesus, choosing faith, acceptance, love and God’s will over her own.
Walking and talking with her Lord and seeking His will “in these gardens” of her life resulted in an intimacy unknown between friends on earth. Entering Heaven was merely a continuation of their conversations, now face-to-face.
*According to Billy Graham, God sends an angel to accompany us over the River Jordan when we die, to ensure that no evil besets us. I’ve no doubt God sent Henry to accompany his beloved Ellen on her journey home. Many years earlier, after exchanging vows on their wedding day, they recessed happily down the aisle; now, arm in arm, they enter the Pearly Gates, a joyous homecoming and a vindication of their faith in God. Does faith work? And, I'm the living proof!"
