The last time Madeline saw her grandmother, it was through a hospital window. COVID protocols allowed only waves and smiles and misty prayers on the other side of a thick pane of glass. Her grandmother held up a handwritten sign: “I’ll race you home.” Madeline cried all the way back to the car.
She knew what the words meant. Not just goodbye—but hope.
There’s something about heaven that teases the edge of our hearts when we lose someone we love. Something that calls. Maybe you’ve felt it too—that hunger to know what really awaits on the other side of this life. Is it just air and light? A myth? Or is it, as Jesus promised, a place?
In John 14:2–3, Jesus speaks with the warmth of a carpenter preparing a home: “In my Father’s house are many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you… I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” There it is—promise, presence, and place.
Heaven is not just a theory or a feeling. It’s a place.
But to understand the heart of this promise, we might need to retrain our eyes. Because when the Bible speaks of heaven, it often does so not in topography, but in tenderness. Not as a location to find, but as a reunion to long for. Revelation 21:2–4 gives us one of the clearest pictures:
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband… ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people.’”
A city. A bride. A home. Why these images?
Because cities are where life happens—where streets echo with laughter and music spills out of windows. And a bride? She is the picture of preparation, of anticipation, of love stepping fully into covenant.
Heaven is not sterile or distant. It is intimate. It is community. It is communion. Revelation doesn’t just describe what heaven looks like; it whispers how it will feel—life where sorrow is a stranger and tears are wiped away by God Himself.
Years ago, I remember sitting beside a woman in hospice. Her name was Ellen, and she knew her time was near. When asked what she thought heaven would be like, she smiled, her eyes already drifting far past the ceiling tiles.
“I don’t know all the details,” she whispered, “but if He built it, I know it’ll feel like love.”
That’s stayed with me.
Because maybe we don’t need to know every turn of heaven’s streets to believe in the One who paves them. Maybe it’s enough to know that Jesus prepared it not as a backup plan, but as our beginning. We are not floating off to some abstract cloud—but returning to a place we were always meant to call home.
And maybe that’s why Scripture speaks of heaven like a wedding. Because heaven isn’t just where we go—it’s who we go to. Christ isn’t just our destination; He’s our delight. Every wedding points toward that kind of reunion: joy that cannot be contained, love stepping into forever.
So no, heaven isn’t an escape hatch from a broken world. It’s the fulfillment of a love story. A promise kept. A place prepared. A presence we’ve always needed—and now finally get to hold.
Sometimes, when the house goes quiet and the weight of life presses in, I think of that image—the Holy City, the Wedding Feast, God dwelling with His people. I think of the crying we won’t do and the hurts we won’t carry. And I whisper what my soul most longs to believe: It’s real. It’s near. And it’s home.
Maybe today, you could whisper that too.
Believe this: You are not forgotten in your disappointment. Not abandoned in your waiting. Not wandering without destination.
Heaven is a place, friend. More than that—it’s a Person. And He’s already turned on the lights, flung open the gates, and carved your name into the door.
The last time Madeline saw her grandmother, it was through a hospital window. COVID protocols allowed only waves and smiles and misty prayers on the other side of a thick pane of glass. Her grandmother held up a handwritten sign: “I’ll race you home.” Madeline cried all the way back to the car.
She knew what the words meant. Not just goodbye—but hope.
There’s something about heaven that teases the edge of our hearts when we lose someone we love. Something that calls. Maybe you’ve felt it too—that hunger to know what really awaits on the other side of this life. Is it just air and light? A myth? Or is it, as Jesus promised, a place?
In John 14:2–3, Jesus speaks with the warmth of a carpenter preparing a home: “In my Father’s house are many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you… I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” There it is—promise, presence, and place.
Heaven is not just a theory or a feeling. It’s a place.
But to understand the heart of this promise, we might need to retrain our eyes. Because when the Bible speaks of heaven, it often does so not in topography, but in tenderness. Not as a location to find, but as a reunion to long for. Revelation 21:2–4 gives us one of the clearest pictures:
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband… ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people.’”
A city. A bride. A home. Why these images?
Because cities are where life happens—where streets echo with laughter and music spills out of windows. And a bride? She is the picture of preparation, of anticipation, of love stepping fully into covenant.
Heaven is not sterile or distant. It is intimate. It is community. It is communion. Revelation doesn’t just describe what heaven looks like; it whispers how it will feel—life where sorrow is a stranger and tears are wiped away by God Himself.
Years ago, I remember sitting beside a woman in hospice. Her name was Ellen, and she knew her time was near. When asked what she thought heaven would be like, she smiled, her eyes already drifting far past the ceiling tiles.
“I don’t know all the details,” she whispered, “but if He built it, I know it’ll feel like love.”
That’s stayed with me.
Because maybe we don’t need to know every turn of heaven’s streets to believe in the One who paves them. Maybe it’s enough to know that Jesus prepared it not as a backup plan, but as our beginning. We are not floating off to some abstract cloud—but returning to a place we were always meant to call home.
And maybe that’s why Scripture speaks of heaven like a wedding. Because heaven isn’t just where we go—it’s who we go to. Christ isn’t just our destination; He’s our delight. Every wedding points toward that kind of reunion: joy that cannot be contained, love stepping into forever.
So no, heaven isn’t an escape hatch from a broken world. It’s the fulfillment of a love story. A promise kept. A place prepared. A presence we’ve always needed—and now finally get to hold.
Sometimes, when the house goes quiet and the weight of life presses in, I think of that image—the Holy City, the Wedding Feast, God dwelling with His people. I think of the crying we won’t do and the hurts we won’t carry. And I whisper what my soul most longs to believe: It’s real. It’s near. And it’s home.
Maybe today, you could whisper that too.
Believe this: You are not forgotten in your disappointment. Not abandoned in your waiting. Not wandering without destination.
Heaven is a place, friend. More than that—it’s a Person. And He’s already turned on the lights, flung open the gates, and carved your name into the door.
