If Revelation were a children's book
God's dream for the littles facing the end of the world
For the past month I’ve been preaching on Revelation at my church, Jubilee Episcopal Church. I made this choice because Revelation is a letter written (in part) to people who felt like their world was ending; because the word “apocalypse” does not mean doom and gloom, it means an unveiling or a revealing; and because this is a book of ecstatic hope for those who have endured terrible trials.
That felt relevant.
I have also, for some months now, been working on my next Big Writing Project, which I am hoping will be several children’s books. (I’m also planning to write more books for grown-ups, but this past fall, while on maternity leave, some Big Ideas struck me in the wee hours of nursing my newborn … so, with a baby in arms, I began tapping out those ideas with my thumb in my notes app and … I think they’re worth pursuing!)
And somehow, in the mixture of thinking about books I want my children to have, and thinking about children facing the end of the world … this poem came out of me. I don’t know if it is something that would ever actually make sense to try and turn into a children’s book? But if I were to write a children’s book on the image of heaven, and reconciliation, and restoration that I see in Revelation? Well, this would be it.
How will God make it right?
My love I know you are frightened,
these days feel dim and uncertain.
But God has never left us lonely,
God has never left us without Him.
And once, long ago, God sent us a dream
to comfort us when the night grew cold —
a dream of how God will end the evil things
a dream of how the earth will grow old;
because as much as we are afraid
that everything is crashing down now
the truth is the world has ended many times before
and is still here, somehow.
And in this dream God promised
that all that has been will be told,
and all that is heavy will be lightened,
and all that is evil will fold.
For sin and death will eat themselves,
and life reigns in the face of it all;
God promises we will not always be sad
the end of us is not the Fall.
The fear that gnaws is not the answer —
it is not the end for which we are made;
God wove us to be with God
So these demons? They will be slayed.
In the great dream God gives us,
there are imaginings terrible and great —
of beasts with seven heads,
of emperors deploying corrosive hate —
but every monster that comes for us,
as real as these terrors can be,
are no match for the tenderness of God
who gave birth to the sea.
Because God hates nothing God has made,
God counts each hair on our heads.
And so as Mother, with the pangs of birth,
She will crush death until death is dead.
She will throw wide the gates we’ve shut
to keep out friends and foes —
She will remind us: we were not made for fear,
we were made to thrive and grow.
She will plant a vineyard where the bombs have fallen.
She will wipe tears from children’s eyes.
She will hold the parent to her breast,
And promise the haunting has left the skies.
She will feed the hungry,
and tells the greedy they must relinquish.
To come into Her city?
You have to let God finish.
Those who wish to do harm
on God’s high and holy mountain,
simply cannot walk through the gates
until they have finished their renouncing.
In God’s City the gates are open wide,
not for foolish forgetting
but because God gives the keys
to those ready to wear forgiving.
Like a mantle, but also a breeze,
restoration breaks open chains —
and the skin underneath is tender,
even harmed, you can begin again.
Because God is not a one chance God,
Her city comes alive at all hours;
God is ready to welcome home,
everyone who longs for flowers.
For the mother who never slept,
and the siblings who cried in grief,
God’s rest is not erasure,
God’s rest is the deepest relief.
For the child who wishes for safety,
and the lonely who just wanted a friend,
for the betrayed who wanted assurance,
and the one who needed to begin again —
where once Her people cried in hunger,
burned by neighbors who chose war,
our God will uncurl a river
to heal what was carved and torn.
In heaven we can tell the stories
of what brought us to our knees —
but we tell them without the anguish.
We tell them like we’re free.
We eat the fruit that grows,
in each season, enough for all.
We sing with soft-bellied wonder,
we dance along each hall.
We’re not bored even as we are endless;
we are delight, we are true,
we are more than can be captured,
because time is gone, and the earth is new.
In the City of God, there is peace
not just the absence of pain;
and the ones we miss are with us,
and we are with them again.
God gave us this dream
because God knew tough days were near.
God did not want us left wanting
God plumbed the depths of fear.
And so for now? God says: “hang in there, baby,
I’m not leaving you out to die —
the end is not the ending.
We’re not finished, you and I.”
So when the world is cruel,
And the monster’s teeth are gleaming,
Close your eyes and pray, darling —
God is not done dreaming.
Such a beautiful poem. I'm going to read it to my Revelations Bible study group and suggest that they follow you on social media and buy your book too.
I'm reading this with tears streaming down. Thank you so much for this!