Sabbath Devotional :: Heaven
A few weeks ago, my mind wandered, and I started reflecting on what heaven looks like to me. This is what I quickly jotted down in my phone’s notes app, and I thought I would share it with all of you.
My idea of heaven is brimming with personality, laughter, and smiles. It is occupied with people coming together and loving each other with a perfect love. It is marveling at the differences all of us have and bring to the table. It is seeing each other with perfect light and understanding.
It is community. It is a place where everybody feels belonging on a deep and reverberating level. It is connection. It is hearts knit together in love and peace. It is a place where no competition is required, and no one vision or way of doing things is supreme.
It is a place where equality, equity, justice, mercy, compassion, and positive peace reign supreme in abundance — so much so that it’s not remarkable, just commonplace, but beautifully, wonderfully so.
My idea of heaven doesn’t look uniform; it is rich and abundant in all forms of diversity. Nobody feels that they have to shove themselves into boxes that don’t quite fit or contort into shapes impossibly big or small. Nobody feels the need to shrink themselves there or hide. Nobody has to fit a mold not designed with them in mind.
Heaven is love. Perfect love. It is light.
In my idea of heaven, nobody is left wondering if they are irrevocably broken or second-class. Nobody is forgotten. Nobody is diminished.
My idea of heaven looks a lot less hierarchal than some have imagined it. It looks a lot less monotone and flat. Frankly, many people’s idea of heaven isn’t something I want any part of. For my idea of heaven is brimming with life and color and vibrancy.
So my parting question for all of you: what does heaven look like to you?
Danica Baird is Senior Director, Proactive Root at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
