I saw a glimpse of heaven this weekend… and it was beautiful.
Sanctuary is an older shabby building. It’s by no means big or flashy, the sign they have to read the churches name on the front of the building is red spray painted onto a pieces of scrap wood. It has carpet that looks like its from the 1970’s and everyone who has come to a service over the last 3 years has spilled something on it and didn’t care to clean it up but I know that they were simply so focused on love and Jesus that they didn’t even notice it, that they realized as they sat amongst the hurt, homeless, addicted, and broken in the face of God some how the priority of what shape the carpet was in began to fade.
We enter on a dark cold November night as ragamuffins wander the sanctuary and a band’s loud rumble fills the air. We enter and stand. I am semi bored as the music doesn’t speak to me and I wonder how much longer I have to stand here before we actually do something. Then I begin to look. The man seated in front of where I stand is dressed in Goodwill clothes and appears to have not showered in days, I assume he is homeless and right before I begin to take a step back to go talk to a friend something beautiful catches my eye; it’s a drawing on his lap that he is zoned in on and it is wonderful. The strokes come easy to him as if he has no control of his hand at all as his vision naturally flows onto the paper. The band eventually stops playing and a previously homeless girl shares her story from her aunt lighting her crib on fire when she was a few months old, to the moment as a toddler she lay on the floor of her apartment completely covered in cockroaches while her mom and her boyfriend have sex right in front of her. She shares about her 4 children who were all taken away from her, her sex addiction, and God’s redemption. How he delivered her out of it all. I saw life, I saw freedom, I saw Jesus.
The music has now restarted and I find myself at a table with a few of my friends from our group. One is doodling the other is creating a beautiful piece of art, naturally, as her hand just flows to create the strokes, no effort whatsoever, just ease and beauty. I glance up at her face and see joy as she lives out her passion. I begin to circle my head around the room and catch about 6 people from our group and our leader on the makeshift dance floor. None of them are dancers yet as I look at their eyes light up and the smiles that are shared… my eyes then move around the dance floor and the entire room and I realize that what is happening at that moment is too good, it is too beautiful, it is too free to be earth and God softly whispers to me, “… a glimpse of heaven…” And I know it’s true. From the guy in the back drawing to our leader on the dance floor there is nothing but brokenness, pain, torment, smothering reality barking you aren’t good enough but that’s gone right now and its purely what God made us for; joy, love, and community. I know that I am surrounded by stories that are so painful they tear my heart to shreds and bring me to my knees… God knew that night that we each needed a little bit of heaven, just a peak, so we could remember why we keep pushing through the pain, he reminds us there is hope and its as real as the disco moves my classmate is making on the dance floor.
