Why Write A Children’s Book About Heaven?
I did not set out to write a children’s book… it sort of happened to me.
This is what I posted to my Facebook page on May 14th, 2021:
“Two months ago Ashley (my wife) and I lost our baby just a few days after finding out she was unexpectedly pregnant again. The following weeks were filled with ups and downs of emotions and losses. One of the losses I experienced was in never being able to have conversations about God with my unborn child, Jesse. Yet I rejoice that he/she is in heaven with Jesus right now.
Something unexpected happened. I started writing a conversation I wish I could have with Jesse about Heaven. We talked about what will it be like, what will we do, all while imagining us fishing together on a fog-filled morning. I wrote it as if it were a children’s book. Well, I showed it to Ashley and she encouraged me to do something with it. I showed it to a few more friends and they said it read like a real book. So I started looking into self-publishing… just to see. Well, the more I looked, the more it felt like I was doing something God wanted me to do — share this story with others.
This morning I signed a book deal with WestBow Press, the self-publishing division of Zondervan, to publish a Children’s book called “What is Heaven Like?” I’m excited to get this book illustrated and published in the coming months. I’ll be posting updates on my facebook page as it progresses. I am beyond humbled at how everything has fallen into place, and I hope that this book helps children and parents to know what Heaven will be like.”
As I write this, I am about 8 weeks away from publishing. Even though the initial shock of losing our baby has faded, I still believe this project is worth doing and was not merely an emotional reaction. So what are my reasons?
Children and adults have a backwards view of heaven. We have been influenced by movies and artistic expressions of heaven that show a bright, cloudy, and dream-like vision of heaven. I do not mean dream-like as if heaven is “dreamy” or “wonderful,” but dream-like in how we are unable to clearly perceive our surroundings while we are dreaming. When we wake up, we experience clarity and vision once again. Because most art depicting heaven is shows a hazy, foggy, and a place that lacks clarity, we accidentally imagine heaven this way. But we have this backwards. We ought to think of earth as “the dream” and heaven as “being awake.” When we get to heaven, we will experience the clarity of vision and mind unlike ever before. And our reflections of earth will be remembered as if we were in a fog all our lives. This is a state we get to look forward to.
Children and adults think heaven will be boring. What will we do in heaven? Many musical worship songs depict heaven as a place where we will be in God’s presence (true) and where we will worship him forever (also true). But to many, “worshipping” is so closely linked to “singing” that they imagine heaven will be an eternity-long Newsboys concert. Despite this common expectation, God’s created humanity “in his image” to be creative cultivators and subjugators over the chaos of the earth. In the same way that God brought order from chaos (Genesis 1), we are to bring order from chaos. During Adam and Eve’s pre-fallen state, they were forming and filling, naming animals, and shaping the whole earth to be like the paradise of Eden. In short, they worked — but their work was good. Recall that work was cursed as a result of the fall. But in a post-fallen state (heaven), work will once again be filled with meaning and goodness and will be void of the toil and hardship. Imagine working in an environment where the world does not fight against the intended results, but has a natural inclination towards the intended results. This is the state we can look forward to.
In just 28 pages, What is Heaven Like? utilizes metaphor, imagery, and conversation between father and son to teach these two concepts of clarity and work in heaven. I hope the book helps parents and their kids reimagine heaven and find themselves longing to be in that place — as as ought to do. As the apostle Paul says, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
This is why I’m writing a children’s book about heaven.
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