Blessed are Those Who Have Not Seen & Have Believed

This past weekend as I was walking out of church I was asked by a fellow parishioner if I still had the “glow.” What he meant, of course, was if I still exhibited the glowing feeling after being baptized at Easter. I smiled and answered with a firm “yes.” I’m not sure whether my “glow” is actually visible to others, but I certainly still feel like I’m glowing from the inside out.

The account of Jesus’ baptism in the Bible is an extraordinarily vivid one. After John the Baptist dipped him into the waters of the Jordan, Jesus “came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him.” I like the concrete image of the dove because it impresses on one the reality that a divine and influential spirit truly does enter into you when you are baptized or when you decide to believe in some entity greater than yourself. For me, the result has been a feeling of constant companionship and assurance that someone is always watching out for and guiding me.

I recently finished reading the book “Heaven is For Real” and saw the movie in theaters. Both left me feeling the same way----that believe it or not, we are not alone in this world. 

For those unfamiliar, “Heaven is For Real” is a story based on the true account of a 4-year-old boy named Colton Burpo. He undergoes an emergency appendectomy and nearly dies. While on the operating table, Colton travels to Heaven and sees a number of amazing and unexplainable things. Over the course of several years, Colton relays the things he saw to his parents. Even Colton’s father, who is a minister, struggled at times to wrap his mind around the notion that his son visited Heaven and saw Jesus. But Colton described things that one couldn’t help but want to believe.

Colton explained that everyone in Heaven is young and has wings. All the colors in the rainbow are vibrantly present in Heaven. There are all kinds of animals and Jesus himself rides a horse. Colton met his grandfather who passed away years before Colton was born. He also met his sister who his mother lost in a miscarriage. 

I don’t think you have to be a believer in God or Heaven in order to be moved by Colton’s story. If nothing else, the story at least make you hopeful. Hopeful that someone is watching over us and that we will go to a second and even greater home once we pass out of this life. 

It wasn’t until after I read the book and was near the end of the movie that I was reminded of my very own heavenly experience several years ago. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it, especially since I wrote a poem about it as part of my senior thesis in college. But once it reappeared in my mind, tears starting streaming down my face in the movie theater.

During the spring of my sophomore year of college, my grandfather passed away. He had not been doing well health wise for quite some time and my mom had been driving back and forth between Helena and Kalispell to visit him for weeks. The family came to realize that he did not have much time left. I planned to take a few days off school to go visit him and say my goodbyes. Unfortunately just a couple of days before I was to leave, he passed away. 

I was getting ready for school one morning in my dorm room when my phone rang. It was my dad. He told me that Grandpa Hank had passed away early that morning. I hung up the phone, sat down at my desk, and started crying. I didn’t cry because he was gone or that I hadn’t said goodbye. I cried because I had seen him and said goodbye just hours ahead of his death.

That very night before I had a dream that I was in the hospital where my grandpa was and walked into his room. He was sitting up and I went over and sat down on his bed next to him. We talked for a while, although I couldn’t recall after waking up exactly what it was we discussed. All I could really remember was holding his hand and telling him goodbye at the end of the dream. So imagine my shock and wonder when I woke up and learned just a few hours later that my grandfather passed away. 

I didn’t go to Heaven and see Jesus like Colton did in “Heaven is For Real,” but there is no doubt in my mind that I had an encounter with the divine. Either way, whether it was because I wanted to tell him goodbye or my grandfather wanted to see me one last time, God intervened and brought us together. For that I am eternally grateful. I know that my grandfather went to Heaven shortly after I saw him and I believe that someday I will see him again in youthful glory when my time comes.  

I think that God reaches out to each of us in His own way and time. Sometimes we need to hear stories like Colton’s in order to revive our trust in our beliefs. But we should strive to believe without always first needing to see.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20:29)