Tiny Cracks of Heaven

"Papa, tiny cracks of Heaven."  She points off over my shoulder as she says it.
"Where did you see cracks of heaven, Faith?"
"Right back there, when we were praying."

The kids and I have been praying the Lord's Prayer together lately.  The language of the prayer naturally brings up the topic of Heaven a bit.  It's been amazing to me how naturally the kids have picked up on our culture's image of Heaven being some far off place floating somewhere up in the sky, even despite my intentional efforts not to pass on that picture of Heaven.  So we've been working on word pictures or phrases that paint another picture of what Heaven might be.

Light.  This has been a helpful picture in our description of Heaven; it is a place glowing with light, chasing away the darkness.

All around us, even in us.  Heaven isn't someplace far away, but it's everywhere, all around us. Actually, Heaven is even closer than that, it's inside of us.

Where what God wants to happen, happens.  Heaven is where there is love, where we share the good things God has given us, where we forgive and don't fight back, where we know the right thing to do, and we do it - even if it's hard.

Where we see God.  When we do what God wants, His light breaks through, and we get to see Heaven right here on Earth.  Sometime in the future, maybe even after we die, we will be able to see God and His light all around us (and in us) all the time.  

As I asked Faith more about what she meant by "tiny cracks of Heaven,"she shared of how when we pray we are doing what God wants, and that is Heaven.

Jesus told us the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these; the little children, our very own "tiny cracks of Heaven."

May we all be tiny cracks of Heaven's light, breaking forth into this dark world!