The Docks

The Docks

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In heaven, the docks won’t be a refuge for me to escape to when fleeing from the broken glass of my home.

They’ll just be docks. And docked there will be simple boats that gently knock up against the pier and percuss a wooden rhythm. Even the boats will sing your praise. 

And in the waters will be rainbows of fish that swim without fear of death. They will soar and jump and dive and swirl around, creating colours with their scales I’ve never seen. Some of them will put on a show just for me. Just because they delight in being seen. 

And the seals that rest on the end of the dock won’t scatter or jump when my weight makes the wood creak and shift. They will see a friend and not a predator, and they will roll over in gentle submission to be pet and loved. They will cuddle into my side and trust me completely, and I them. 

The water’s whispering flow won’t need to be my only sense of comfort anymore, for on the horizon I will see the presence of Love Himself sitting atop the throne. Him, the engine of creation, the artist of each glimmer that hits the waves shape and catches for just an instant. Even the fleeting moments, painstakingly detailed work of his nurturing hands. 

I won’t be afraid to jump in the water because I might drown, or get hurt, or be attacked. The waters will house all of your beautiful ideas, unmarred by sin and death. The sea creatures will flock to play, exploring my foreign human shape and delighting in the cradle of the waves. They will swim in joyful harmony as the angels sing your praises and the clouds reflect rainbows and never block the sun because you are my Light now, my Warmth and Life for all of eternity. 

And when I leave the waters I won’t be afraid of going home and getting in trouble for sneaking out, or face the disappointment of realising that no one even noticed I was gone. I will simply join the rest of your body as it rests in your presence. Not resting like we know it - our desperate attempt to recover enough to go back into a world diseased with fear and chaos. No, rest will be all we know, and every movement of our bodies will give us more life, more energy, more comfort, more peace, because You’re life is flowing through us just as it did in the garden on those first precious days of creation. 

We will tend the land and never grow weary, every day feasting on new fruits your endless imagination conjures. The land will open like the skies and life will burst forth like rain and we will never be hungry, or tired, or scared of the future. 

Life will be scored by the quiet raindrops that drum a tin roof, the morning’s birdsong, the angelic choir, the wispy streams that flow through the forests, the maracas of the leaves that sway on trees in the wind, and life will be a gentle, beautiful symphony of your glory and beauty and perfection. 

And endless poetry will flow from my mouth because every cell is a new source of inspiration, and beauty is no longer a refuge from harshness but a sweet reality I never tire of. 

I will join creation’s gentle, beautiful symphony with a song you composed for only I to sing, and it will perfectly fit the melodies that your other children sing. 

And I will never cry again. Even joyful crescendos won’t bring me to tears because my body will be freed from its bondage and I will hold endless stores of joy inside of me. It won’t need to find a way out because it doesn’t have anywhere to go. It won’t need to move around the heartbreak to make room for itself. 

The sting of neglect will only be a distant memory. The gallows of isolation will only be an idea, a concept, and not a dark cavern my heart tries to escape. I won’t remember where the cracks in my soul used to be because wholeness has now encapsulated me. 

And I will sing freedom’s song for all of eternity.