The Gate

In the prologue of a book I'm working on, The Waiting Room, I give a detailed account of the only vision I have had to date. At a tender age, I think by all accounts three, I looked up to the heavens and was struck with fear at the sight that met my eyes.

It was a gate, a great big pearly gate, nestled on fluffy white clouds. It was so beautiful that it was awe-inspiring, its great majesty invoking fear in my young breast. I ran inside the house to escape the apparition, but its beauty had such a magnetic pull that I soon found myself inching toward the door to get another tantalizing peek.

It was not to be. It was gone.

I was so mad at myself. Why had I run away? Why hadn't I just stood there to look at it? But it was too late. The vision had disappeared.

Later, much later, after some devastatingly sad years of being a lost lamb, the memory of this vision served as one of the sticking points blaring at me, "Janine, there IS a God." I had known Him as a child, but the pain of life's bitter blows ended up causing me to question His existence. When I reached the end of my hopes, though, and queried, "God, are You there? Is Jesus Christ really your Son?" He in His mercy welcomed me home, revealing His majesty to me with His very presence. And reminding me of The Gate.

No one can tell me I imagined it in a fit of psycho-babble in order to convince myself that God exists. I was too young for such folderol when I had that vision. I had been but a literal minded child. It was not imagined. I saw what I saw. Period. All the years since, whenever I would think about that beautiful gate, the inevitable thought would come, "God in His mercy let me see one of Heaven's gates to draw me to Him." I was right—and I was wrong.

Yes, God used that vision as proof positive to me that this world we see with our physical eyes is not the end all and be all. There is another very real world, a spiritual world, out there, surrounding us, waiting for us. But that pearly gate whose beauty defies description signified more than the existence of another plane. It was a prophetic portent of the beauty and the pain which I—and all who would be called by the Master's name—would have to endure in my walk with my beloved Savior.

Yes, our salvation is gloriously free. John 3:16. Ephesians 2:8-9, and on and on.  But in Philippians 12:12 the writer of Romans, that quintessential book on faith, says something that seems counterintuitive, that we should "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Note that he did not say work for our salvation—that was paid for once and for all by our Savior—but work out. The implication is clear. While our salvation might be gloriously free, there are things the believer must do to manifest the truth of that salvation in this life.

One of those things we must "work out," I believe, is clarified by Paul in the following quotations. "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Galatians 6:17). And, "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church" (Colossians1:24). What exactly does this mean?

Christ did indeed suffer for us, yet His sufferings are not complete. Yes, they are complete for salvation. Yes, they are complete for healing. But in some inscrutable, transcendental way, there is a part of them yet to be fulfilled, and can only be fulfilled, by those who love Him. We, those adopted into His body and called by His Name, are in some inexplicable way called to complete the circle of suffering.

Consider how a pearl is made—through the effects of an irritating grain of sand. Through suffering. Every sting of pain causes the mollusc to produce a bit more nacre (a pearl-like substance) to cover that irritation. It happens again. And again. And again. Until the once painful irritation is transformed into a glorious, beautiful pearl.

So are our sufferings as we follow Christ. Many of us might not be called on, like our precious Chinese brethren, to suffer the loss of worldly goods and aspirations in our quest to follow Christ. Many of us might not be called on to offer the ultimate sacrifice as are many of our brethren in Muslim or communist nations. But who, called by the name of Christ, has not felt at some point having been misunderstood? Who has not felt like an outsider, perhaps even ostracized? Who has not suffered scorn or verbal abuse? To those on the receiving end of such barbs, these are real pains, real sufferings. Each pain, each irritation, produces more spiritual nacre. More beauty.

James and John wanted to sit in the seats of honor at Jesus' right and left hands. The Master answered them, "Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" (Mark 10:38). Though Jesus went on to explain that this honor was not His to give, He made the caveat for it clear. To be in a place of honor with Christ requires the discipline of suffering. Most of the disciples did indeed pay that price.

Except for John, whose martyrdom was stymied by divine intervention which resulted in his exile to Patmos and subsequent death from old age, and Judas Iscariot, who died by his own hand, each of Jesus' original disciples died a martyr's death. Each disciple who knew Jesus, walked with Jesus, was used mightily by Jesus, was martyred.

Pain. Irritation. Nacre. Beauty.

It is no happenstance that the portals of Heaven, those twelve Heavenly gates, are made of precious pearl. The substance from which they are made was not chosen merely to take our breath away; their unmatched-in-beauty substance radiates a proclamation that resounds, "Those who follow hard after the Master will suffer tribulation—but their pain and suffering will be rendered into a thing of beauty."

The gate of Heaven. A gate of pearl. Not just something expounding the beauty of the world to come, but also a prophetic visual of the suffering that is integral to growing in the grace of our Lord Jesus.

Suffering, are you? Take heart. There is Someone Who knows all about it, Who has suffered that very thing, and grieves right there along with you and even now is walking with you in your valley of tribulation. And know that every pain, every brokenness, every hurt, is working a greater reward for you in Heaven. That pain is even now being reflected in the beauty of those heavenly gates of pearl.

"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10).

"These things I have spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).