The View From Heaven

Forever, I am a daddy’s girl. No greater gift, position or blessing have I cherished as much as being my Dad’s little girl. This distinction came with many perks, including being Dad’s sidekick. One such special “duo-day’s” treasure came with both a worldly and heavenly lesson.

Long story short, high school was not a local event for me. This window of my education was over an hour’s drive from my home’s front door. However, it was never a negative. Quite the opposite, it was minute by minute, year in and year out, positively the best part of my life. I got to ride with my Dad as he daily maneuvered the way to his cross-city office – via a nearby, drop off, pit stop at my high school.

Many a day on the way to or fro, we’d detour into Chicago’s downtown for Dad to check on a problem or progress at a landmark building the company he led was erecting. Dad was an electrical contracting genius, who gave rise to many of Chicago’s tallest structures. However, it was not the height of a building but the depth of its integrity that founded and grounded my Dad’s contribution to the city’s skyline.

The first time we’d stop by a site, floors weren’t stacking. Only dirt was piling up from huge holes being excavated. My Dad explained to me that the most important fundamental for rising high is to dig deep and cement your foundation in the soil (and soul) of the core of your life’s blueprint. When a skyscraper was near finished, and I stood by my Dad’s side high above the ground, he would instruct me that the greatest of life’s feared free falls is when one places themself high above others, looks down and sees all others as tiny mini people unable to be distinguished as the unique and gifted individuals needed to bring occupancy and fruition to human plans and divine resurrection.

One cold winter night, we were late starting back home and needed to make a downtown stop at a nearly completed superstructure high rise. I had a lot of homework to do and wanted to stay in the car and get it underway. My Dad must have known the wisdom I most needed to discover was not bound in a book but found with a look. He nixed my stay-in-car idea. Though a tad bit reluctant, I knew better than to second guess my Dad.

As Dad was going over a blueprint with the foreman, there I was gazing over the city’s lights from a penthouse window. Wow, it was a breathtaking sight. Blazing glitter everywhere, I felt I was suspended amidst the stars. Walking over to me, Dad announced time to head home. Engulfed in awe, I told him this must be just like the view from heaven. Without a moment of hesitation, my Dad uprooted my worldly misconception and seeded soul deep reflection.

Dad’s wisdom informed me that the view from heaven is not a penthouse field of vision. Much the opposite, the view from heaven is atop a very steep and treacherous mountain. One gets to heaven not by riding a fast elevator but by climbing over life’s challenges, step by step. It’s not a smooth ascent but only achieved by overcoming the stumbling rocks of occasional rough descents Satan strews across one’s path to heaven.

Dad concluded by commencing profound wisdom in my mind, heart and soul. He shared it was up to me if I set my life on a course to end up with a penthouse view or set my heart and soul on a path to reach heaven’s mountain top view.

My Dad has reached heaven’s mountaintop view. I pray that from heaven, he’s looking down and seeing his daddy’s girl following in the footsteps he left behind to guide me.