"I don't want God to come back! If he comes, I'm going to hide!" I hear Lorisena, one of my precious little first graders say. I was taken aback, and I decided to take a few minutes of our class time to explore this topic a little.
"When Jesus comes back, we won't be able to hide. No one will get to choose what we do. Why don't you want God to come back?" I asked her. She smiled and covered her face with embarrassment. "I can't wait for Jesus to come back," I said. "I want to go to Heaven with him." The students started listening with interest. Lorisena uncovered her face to hear what I was saying. "Heaven is perfect. It is better than any place on Earth. In Heaven, no one is ever hungry." I told them. "In Heaven, there is a huge long table so long that you can't even see the end of it. And it is filled with all the food that you can imagine!"
Their eyes widened with surprise. One of the students asked, "Is there a market in Heaven?"
I chucked and said, "I don't know if there is a market, but if there is one, everything in the market is free!" The kids looked at each other in disbelief. I went on, "Not only is there food for everyone, but there are green trees and plants, and the rivers are clean and crystal clear. There is no trash anywhere!"
"Mademoiselle Katie, are there houses in Heaven?" someone asked me.
"Yes!" I said with excitement. "God has a mansion and it is filled with rooms. We all have our own special place to live. It is clean and rats and mice never come inside. The rain water and mud never leaks inside of it either."
"How do you know all this? Have you been to Heaven already, Mademoiselle Katie?" one of the students asked in all seriousness.
"No, I haven't been there yet. It says this in the Bible. Do you want to hear some more?" I asked them.
"Yes!" they said.
"Well, in Heaven all the streets are made of gold. The walls have precious stones and gems all over them. There are animals of all kinds and they live together. It never gets dark in Heaven, and you never ever cry. Heaven is perfect so there are no tears. We get to be with God forever." The students sat in silence as if they were mesmerized by what I was saying. "So, do you still think that you want to hide when Jesus comes back?" I asked them.
"No." They said.
"We can all go to Heaven to be with God. We just have to love God and follow Him during our life and have a relationship with Him. When Jesus comes back to Earth, if we love Him, we get to go with Him."
Lorisena who had been silent since I started talking suddenly decided to speak again. "When its time for me to go to Heaven, God is going to throw a rope down for me and I'm going to climb up!"
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