Several years ago, a lovely woman held a luncheon where I met her friends and signed copies of my book. It was a wonderful day. Many of the women wanted to share with me their stories about loved ones dying or glimpses of heaven after their deaths.
Last month, when I saw the woman who organized the event, this woman told me of her mother’s recent death; she worried about her mother because her mother was not really a Christian. She tried to put these thoughts away as best she could, but they still often came to her mind. She decided to pray about it and leave the rest to God.
In time she took on the task of emptying her mother’s house and sharing everything she found with the rest of the family. When she was carrying out the last boxes, a sudden gust of wind blew a stack of papers out of the box and they scattered everywhere. She quickly gathered most of them, but she could see a tiny piece of paper still flying around in the distance. Something nudged her to go after it.
When she finally retrieved it, she saw, written in her mother’s own hand, a passage from Scripture: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
She felt as if God himself had spoken to her and given peace to her worried heart. Indeed he had. Her mother had obviously been searching for Jesus for a long time and there, on that piece of paper, she had written his assurance to her.