Shape of Heaven

- "Daddy, how is Heaven?"

-" I have never been there but i read in the Bible that there are going to be golden roads and we will miss nothing - we will have everything we need!"

Our eyes instantly filled with wonder and hope.

- " So i will have a bag of chips if i want?"

- " Yes!"

- " And i will have steak?"

- " Yes!"

- " And we will have any kind of food we want?? Even a salami sandwich?", our enthusiasm was increasing, reaching the top.

- " Yes! There will be absolutely everything you want and need!"

I remember our joy, jumping around our father and asking him all sorts of things that we could possibly find up there - i remember restarting the exact same coversation every night before bed, in the living room just because we wanted to receive one more time that glimpse of hope and promise. I remember wanting so bad and sincere to go to Heaven - telling Jesus how much we wanted to go "home"; praying with such power and honesty, all of us, lined up on our knees.

Some people might say that our father lied to us - that he missunderstood the Bible - that the Heaven is not about earthly things.

But i say that my father understood something more deep than a religious dogma. He understood that the Heaven is what we needed.

We were starving kids - our classmates in school were laughing at us because we didn't have a salami sandwich or a sandwich at all for that matter..a bag of chips for us was a luxury and the meat was almost inexistent. For us, that was the perfect portrait of happiness. For us, that was Heaven.

What my dad taught us was that God's love for us is simple and needed. It completes what is missing. In our fresh minds, that was the shape of His love: and it made us believe and look forward to go home.