Beth, Birds, a Little Girl and Some Thoughts about Heaven
By

Robin Shreeves

The musicians at the pavilion on the beach were practicing the song “I Can Only Imagine” – a song that muses on what it will be like in heaven. Through an opening in the pavilion I could look out onto the beach and see about 40 seagulls soaring freely.

Free, I thought. That’s what heaven will be like – freedom from what weighs me down in this world. I will have the ability to soar freely like a bird on the ocean breeze.

I had been invited to the pavilion by Beth, a woman who had introduced herself to my friend Challey and me out of the blue as we walked the boardwalk from Asbury Park to Ocean Grove.

Beth could have been 25; she could have been 40. It was hard to tell. She was only about 4’10” tall, and it was clear that she had some mental incapacities.

Beth walked between Challey and me and took our arms. She spoke freely about herself and was unafraid to ask if we would be her friends. When she found out that we were mothers she asked, “Will you both adopt me? Not for real. Just so I know that I had more family.”

I was surprised that I found it easy to walk alongside Beth while she talked and grabbed our hands as she pleased. She told us about the people she lived with, her curfew, the kind of food she liked (and that she was not allowed to eat anything in her room), and she told us she was a Christian.

She asked us to go up to the pavilion with her to hear a band practice for a later performance. We agreed to go with her. We sat in the back. Then Beth excused herself and said she was going to sit up front and she left us. That’s when I saw the seagulls and started thinking about heaven and being free.

As I was sitting there thinking about freedom, a little girl, maybe six years old, came running up from the beach soaking wet. She was running ahead of her family and ignoring her mother’s call. I wondered if that young girl, who had probably just spent the day romping by the powerful ocean, felt the freedom of the birds. Did she have that feeling young children have of possessing infinite possibilities or had she already begun the inevitable process of being weighed down by the world? I believe that at one time, a long time ago, I felt all was possible.

Sitting there watching the birds fly and the little girl run freely, I began to have a real sense of “this world is not my home.” I was created to soar freely like a bird on the breeze or romp like a six year old girl having the time of her life at the beach. So was my newfound friend, Beth. But, we are both weighed down, in very different ways, by our actual or self imposed limitations while here on earth.

Philippians 3:21 tells us that in heaven, Jesus will transform our lowly bodies into glorious ones like his. Those things that weigh us down – mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually – will be gone.

Someday, I can only imagine, both Beth and I will be soaring freely through heaven in our glorious bodies– our limitations left behind in this world.

Robin Shreeves is a freelance writer and work at home mom of two. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Bible from Philadelphia Biblical University. More of her work can be seen at robin.shreeves.net.  If you would like to comment on this article, feel free to email writers@blessedlady.com.

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