Heaven Is …

I am a child of summer. I would LOVE nothing more than living in a perpetual summertime. I love being outside in nature. I love hearing birds sing and lawn mowers at 6 am. I love wearing nothing more than shorts and a shirt and going around barefoot. I love open windows and cool breezes. I love green flowering and fruiting plants. I love the sun’s warmth on my skin like a blanket. I love summer.

I am not a child of winter. I don’t miss cold, snow and wind chills. I don’t miss frosted windows, windshields and mustaches. I don’t miss the hollow sound of creaking, empty trees dealing with overweight snow and brittle winds. I don’t miss bundling up in layers upon layers of clothing just to get the mail. I don’t miss the salty roads, dirty snow piles, and slush. I don’t miss the sunless days where cold comes on you like a prickly sweater. I don’t miss winter.

I tell people, who don’t live in the south that we have one spring, two summers and a really hot season. I don’t miss winter. Of course this is a preference and I know others who have EXACTLY the opposite view of mine. I have a distant relative with whom I share the same name, who lives in Norway and LOVES the winter and can’t wait for summer to be over. Others I know love the changing of the seasons and would miss summer leaves turning to fall, fall colors turning to a white blanket, winter white turning to the new growth of spring, and spring sprouting into a full blown summertime.

I cannot see myself in a cold climate again. But I can’t say I will NEVER be in a cold climate again. I find an even deeper truth than my love of summer. I find that God has plans that may not have ANYTHING to do with my preferences. What happens if God calls my wife and I back to Michigan, or to a church in Northern Alberta? No, sorry God, I prefer summertime. How about Hawaii or the Florida Keys?

Actually that is a picture of heaven for me. Right now, my preferences and God’s plan are often at odds. But there will come a time when they are one and the same. There is a place where I will be just where God wants me to be and that will be the same place where I prefer to be. That time and that place is heaven. I can’t wait (well, I can, but you know what I mean) to move there!

Heaven is where your preferences and God’s plan become one.