Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
What do you think heaven will be like?
Wings and harps and music? Joyous reunions with those we love… and a certain satisfaction that those people, the ones who made our time on earth difficult, are nowhere 
to be found?
Or how about a time of reckoning—not for us, but for God? Have you already started a list of questions for him: “What was the deal with my mother being bedridden for ten years?” “Did you really have to send me to the brink and back with my son?” “That was a pretty cold, the way you never gave me a break in all my working days. Why?”
In today’s lectionary reading from John 16, Jesus likens the situation to women who forget the pains of labor after the baby is born. He says:
So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything.”
So maybe we can get a head start on that today. Maybe we can stop asking the whys and whens and hows here on earth… and work on doing what we can to prepare for the joyful times ahead.
