Paradise
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven …to paradise.
2 Corinthians 12:2-4
Ah, paradise! There is nothing like a garden wedding to paint a picture in your mind of paradise, especially a botanical garden, especially when it happens to be the wedding of your grandson and his beautiful bride. After all Eden, that first Paradise garden, was the perfect setting for the first marriage (Genesis 2:15,24).
However, it is not quite that simple to pinpoint Paradise in our finite minds. It is past where “the bluebirds fly” (earth’s atmosphere), past where “the sun, moon, and stars reside” (the expanse of the universe); it is “the dwelling place of God.”*
Jesus openly assures the penitent thief on the cross: “today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Paul, caught up to the third heaven/paradise tells us it is a very real place through firsthand experience. And Revelation 6:9-10 describes the souls of martyrs in conversation with God in real time.
Whew, that is a lot to digest. It is evident though that when we die before Christ’s return, we who are believers will “exist in an intermediate state in the present Heaven with (Christ)…absent from (our) earthly bodies…(yet) not in a suspended state of sleep…not an unconscious existence…(but) fully alive in God’s presence.”**
Yes, we are made for eternity. But our days on this earth, marred by original sin in that first garden, contend with the brambles of living. And so we pull the weeds that get in our way, and plant the seeds of life for others to see and pick and grow and bloom in their hearts.
As for me, in the rough times my mind will return to that botanical garden wedding—to the beds of fragrant roses, to the floral bouquets, to the pastel gowns, to the smiles, to the joy, to the “cord of three strands”*** that binds us all together. And I will think ahead, to Paradise.
Nancy P
All Scripture quotations are from the NIV Translation 1973, 1978, 1984, unless otherwise noted.
*Jennifer Rothschild, Heaven, p.23, Lifeway Press, 2025
**Jennifer Rothschild, Heaven, p.33, Lifeway Press, 2025
***Ecclesiastes 4:12
