Early one morning my sister Jay and I drove down to the little Maryland farming community of Sykesville. We wanted to go down there to visit Grandma Clark. She really wasn’t my grandmother. She and Jay had become friends at their tiny stone church on top of the hill, and we had been invited to her big farmhouse for tea. I wheeled into the kitchen—I was in my wheelchair back then--and was greeted by the aroma of a hot cake from the oven. Grandma Clark had placed white crisp linen on a table by an open window. A breeze lifted lace curtains and wafted in the scent of hydrangeas.
Jay and I sipped tea from delicate porcelain cups. My eyes followed Grandma Clark. She leaned back, smoothed the tablecloth with her hand, and spoke of heaven in grand and wistful terms. While she was speaking about heaven, a gust of wind suddenly whipped the curtains, tossing her gray hair. She held up her hand, smiling and squinting against the stiff breeze. Whooosh! It eddied around the table, dizzying and lifting our spirits, just like it did the skirt of the tablecloth.
The moment was so strange, but it was so delightful. I don’t know how else to say it, but I think all of us knew that something really wonderful had just occurred. It was something more that we sensed than we could speak about.
But as quickly as that heavenly moment came it vanished, settling us back down and becoming timeless, leaving in its wake some wonderful smell of peace and joy. I can still taste the cakes and tea; I can still inhale the fragrance of the spring flowers; I can still see the curtains snap, the dapples of sun dance on the tablecloth. Oh, it was a heavenly moment.
Moments like these really remind us of some other time, some other place. You’ve had them. We say the same of childhood memories: lazy, late afternoons licking Popsicles on the back step, listening to a lawnmower up the street, and feeling a breeze cool our brow. Or running out the screen door after dinner to catch fireflies and hearing it slam behind you. Or sitting by a campfire, hugging your knees, watching the sparks fly upward, becoming stars. If we could be transported back to those childhood memories, we would discover that even as children we felt that same strange nostalgia, that “remembering” of some other time and place where we have never been.
And I do believe that moments like those—like that one I had with Grandma Clark—create this longing, this soul-deep yearning, as C. S. Lewis put it, to pass through the beauty we are experiencing and reach the other side. And in those timeless moments, we hear a whisper without words: “One day this kind of peace and joy, you’re going to bathe in it…satisfaction is going to shower you…the joy you are experiencing this moment is going to last forever.”
This is what we as children feel. It’s another hint of heaven, like choosing the happiest point in your life and having time stand still forever. And, friend, I'll admit it that lately I’ve been thinking more and more about the life waiting for me on the other side… I’ve been thinking about going home... going to see Grandma Clark one day. What timeless moments do you recall? Moments that you would almost describe as heavenly. Well, they are. They are whispers of heaven sent here on earth from the other horizon. Think about that today and praise God that one day you and I really will bathe in joy… we will be showered in satisfaction… and we’ll soak in peace forever and ever and worship our glorious king.
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JONI AND FRIENDS
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