The last time Lila closed her eyes, it was on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The hospital room buzzed with monitors and quiet prayers. Her husband, Mark, held her hand until the very end. That night he drove home in silence, the seat beside him too empty to feel real.
Weeks passed, but time didn’t heal—it only stretched. What remained wasn’t just grief, but a heavy, aching question that Mark had buried beneath casserole dishes and condolences: Will I ever see her again? And if I do… will she still know me?
Maybe you’ve felt that too. The ache of wondering what comes next—for them and for us.
Scripture doesn’t give us a step-by-step blueprint of heaven, but it does offer glimmers. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
It’s a sentence that catches the breath. Paul, the same man who met Christ on the Damascus road, confesses that, right now, we only see shadows. Echoes. But someday, there will be no veil—only face-to-face clarity. Not only will we know fully… we’ll be fully known.
That truth changes something deep in us.
Then there’s that mountaintop moment when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up into a cloud-kissed encounter in Luke 9. As Jesus prayed, His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. And there beside Him stood two men—Moses and Elijah.
Two prophets, long dead by human timelines. And yet, they stood. They spoke. They were recognizable to the disciples who had never laid eyes on them before.
How did they know? Did heaven leave some mark on their faces? Perhaps it wasn’t about the body but the unmistakable presence of who they truly were.
Which tells us something beautiful: we don’t lose ourselves in heaven—we find ourselves.
Our deepest, truest identities aren’t tied to age or illness, scars or seasons. They are bound to God’s memory of who we are, untainted by sin or time. When we arrive at that final home, we won’t be strangers wandering through a celestial city. We’ll be sons and daughters walking into a family reunion.
And yes, we’ll recognize the ones we’ve lost—not simply by memory, but by love.
Love, after all, is the only currency that death can’t touch.
It’s easy to imagine heaven as vague—a misty, golden nowhere. But that’s not what Jesus promised. He spoke of rooms prepared. Of banquets. Of names written in heaven.
I think about Mark sitting in their quiet house, sunlight spilling across the floorboard where she once stood in the early morning, sipping her coffee. It’s in that silence he sometimes dares to say her name out loud, wondering if she still knows the sound of his voice.
She does.
Because in heaven, nothing good is lost—especially not the love that began with God and passed through us.
So maybe, just maybe, when heaven unfolds and eyes meet for the first time in forever, it won’t be with confusion or formality. No need for introductions. Just the bright, sudden warmth that says: There you are. I’ve known you all along.
Under all the shadows and through all the sorrow, that’s the truest part of us—already known, already loved, already held.
Not even death forgets what God remembers.
The last time Lila closed her eyes, it was on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The hospital room buzzed with monitors and quiet prayers. Her husband, Mark, held her hand until the very end. That night he drove home in silence, the seat beside him too empty to feel real.
Weeks passed, but time didn’t heal—it only stretched. What remained wasn’t just grief, but a heavy, aching question that Mark had buried beneath casserole dishes and condolences: Will I ever see her again? And if I do… will she still know me?
Maybe you’ve felt that too. The ache of wondering what comes next—for them and for us.
Scripture doesn’t give us a step-by-step blueprint of heaven, but it does offer glimmers. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
It’s a sentence that catches the breath. Paul, the same man who met Christ on the Damascus road, confesses that, right now, we only see shadows. Echoes. But someday, there will be no veil—only face-to-face clarity. Not only will we know fully… we’ll be fully known.
That truth changes something deep in us.
Then there’s that mountaintop moment when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up into a cloud-kissed encounter in Luke 9. As Jesus prayed, His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. And there beside Him stood two men—Moses and Elijah.
Two prophets, long dead by human timelines. And yet, they stood. They spoke. They were recognizable to the disciples who had never laid eyes on them before.
How did they know? Did heaven leave some mark on their faces? Perhaps it wasn’t about the body but the unmistakable presence of who they truly were.
Which tells us something beautiful: we don’t lose ourselves in heaven—we find ourselves.
Our deepest, truest identities aren’t tied to age or illness, scars or seasons. They are bound to God’s memory of who we are, untainted by sin or time. When we arrive at that final home, we won’t be strangers wandering through a celestial city. We’ll be sons and daughters walking into a family reunion.
And yes, we’ll recognize the ones we’ve lost—not simply by memory, but by love.
Love, after all, is the only currency that death can’t touch.
It’s easy to imagine heaven as vague—a misty, golden nowhere. But that’s not what Jesus promised. He spoke of rooms prepared. Of banquets. Of names written in heaven.
I think about Mark sitting in their quiet house, sunlight spilling across the floorboard where she once stood in the early morning, sipping her coffee. It’s in that silence he sometimes dares to say her name out loud, wondering if she still knows the sound of his voice.
She does.
Because in heaven, nothing good is lost—especially not the love that began with God and passed through us.
So maybe, just maybe, when heaven unfolds and eyes meet for the first time in forever, it won’t be with confusion or formality. No need for introductions. Just the bright, sudden warmth that says: There you are. I’ve known you all along.
Under all the shadows and through all the sorrow, that’s the truest part of us—already known, already loved, already held.
Not even death forgets what God remembers.
