For over two months, my parents prepared a special Christmas gift for our then six-year-old daughter Jennifer. Daddy enjoyed working with wood; Mom enjoyed designing the furnishings of this homemade doll house. Hours went by as Daddy hammered and built the two-story house.  Mom hand made tiny curtains for windows and purchased miniature furniture and a cute doll family. Their ultimate joy was imagining Jennifer’s thrill on this particular Christmas morning. Tradition was that they always stayed with us the night before, so they could participate in the joys of our holiday.

Neither of them had thought about how they were going to transport the doll house once it was finished. They were intently focused on the project. So, just a couple of days before Christmas Eve, Daddy realized he had to rent a trailer on which to mount the not-so-little doll house.

Neither had Daddy thought about the rugged travel as the doll house shook and jostled the 78-mile journey from their house to ours. As they arrived that evening, they kept the doll house a secret while the children were tucked in bed for the night. I won’t forget Daddy’s face when he went out to the trailer to find the doll house’s insides shaken and disassembled. The tiny stairs he carefully built with his comparatively large hands had pulled apart. He spent hours into the night rebuilding his little dream house for his granddaughter. May I add…without one word of complaint. That was my daddy; nothing was ever too much for his family.

In no way does this compare to the “place for you” that my Lord is preparing. My mind cannot comprehend what it will be like to be with Him one day, along with my family members and friends who have gone before me. In no way can I compare Jennifer’s overwhelming joy that Christmas morning with seeing my home in Heaven. But I can still remember the look on her face when she realized that her grandparents had gone to all that loving time and effort to prepare this little doll house for her. It was a glimpse of what childlike thrill it will be to receive something so beyond my imagination.

Father God won’t have to transport my heavenly home on a trailer. Neither will it be jostled and wrecked. He will wait with great anticipation to see the look on my face when I see what He’s prepared for me. Every day in Heaven will be greater than any ‘Christmas morning’ I could imagine. The family He plans for me to see will be real: I will rejoice as I am reunited with those my heart aches for. Meanwhile, until that day of intense joy, I remain captivated by the memory of the doll house…a miniature version of God’s love expressed.

“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. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” [John 14:2-3]