New Year and a Vision of Heaven

There is something a bout a fresh start that is generally inspiring to us as humans. There seems to be a sense that things will be better. Our health, our finances and various parts of our lives are seen as teeming with potential for a much more positive status to be achieved.

Although we know that there will be positive changes in our lives in the coming year, sadly we know that many of the goals set by ourselves and others will be abandoned by the end of February and we will soon be longing for another fresh start. We believe that if we could just clear a few hurdles then everything will be better. Unfortunately, clearing one hurdle often reveals others that prevent the sense of rest we seek.

Joy Davidman, who later became Joy Lewis the wife of C.S. Lewis, as an atheist in her young adult years had a recurring dream of a path that lead to a castle in a place she called fairyland. In the dream, she was told if she remembered the way she could find this castle when she awoke. The recurring dream lead her to write the following poem;

At night, when we dreamed,
we went down a street
and turned a corner,
and there, it seemed,
there was the castle.

Always, if you knew,
if you know how to go,
you could walk down a street
(the daylight street)
that twisted about
and ended in grass
there it was
always, the castle.

Remote, unshadowed,
childish, immortal,
strong to defend,
stood castle safety
at the worlds end.

O castle safety,
love without crying,
honey without cloying,
death with dying!
Hate and heart break
all were forgot there;
we always woke,
we never got there.

Joy tried to pass it off as wishful thinking but couldn’t help but wonder why does there seem to be a universal longing among humanity for a fresh start, a place of peace, a place of rest and contentment?

Her eventual husband C.S. Lewis completes the thought when he explains that all human desires have a real source of satisfaction. For hunger there is food, for safety there is shelter, for relationship there are family and friends. He then comes to the conclusion, “If we find in ourselves a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

Our desire for a truly fresh start, one free from toil and the ever present “last hurdle” points us to heaven. It is to remind us that there is a God and that our souls will never find rest until it rests in Him.