What the Eyes Will See

When a baby is "born sleeping" one of the heart pains is you never see their eyes. Its one of the big questions when  you have a baby, right? What color eyes will they end up with? Who do they look like and which features are from where. It has bothered me greatly that I've never seen Jairus's eyes. I have often dreamed I am holding him and he scrunches his face the way babies do just before awakening. But I always wake up before his little eyes gaze into mine. 

Now, I have my assumptions. Jairus's hair is dark brown, almost black. And based on that I can figure that he probably has dark brown eyes like my sister, or maybe brown and green hazel colored eyes like Emma. But I'll never know for sure. 

This morning at preschool Emma got to bring in the "blessing bag." It's a yellow bag filled with books and a journal that each child takes a turn bringing home and filling out. They read the books and talk about blessings with their Mom/Dad/Grandparents and then fill out a page in the journal about what blessings are in their life. The child then brings the completed work back to preschool with them and gets to share about their blessings during "group time." Emma dictated her blessings to me and I wrote them down, then she drew a picture. Her list included things like: family, TV and movies, polar bear, cousins, friends, God takes care of us, her tricycle, etc.. 

When it was time to choose something from home to bring into the class to show and tell about her blessings, she told me she wanted to bring in her polar bear and a picture. "A picture of what Emma?" "Of my brother Jairus, the one where he is sleeping." She then ran up to the nursery and chose one of the photos we have in a frame sitting in there and brought it down to put it in her back-pack. I'd told her about a month ago she could bring in a picture to show her teachers Jairus if she wanted to, but she hadn't really mentioned it since then and I wanted to leave it up to her. I was a bit surprised, needless to say. But so proud of her.

When I dropped Emma off I told her teachers that she had brought a photo but wasn't sure if she would show it or not (I wanted to give them a heads up) and then I left my little girl at school and took Hazen to run errands. Upon picking her up a couple hours later, Emma's teacher, Ms. Kelly,  told me Emma talked a lot to the whole class (which is very unusual for her, she usually doesn't speak much at school, just keeps to herself. Go Emma!) and showed everyone the picture she had brought in of Jairus. Ms. Kelly said Emma told everyone her baby lives in Heaven, and that "he never opened his eyes here. So the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, was God."

That really blew me away. I am pretty sure we'd talked to Emma about Jairus getting to see Jesus in Heaven, but not for a while. And it's definitely not something she's been talking about lately. It reminded me a lot of something I read lately in the book "Heaven is for Real." In which a little boy (Colton) who had a visit to heaven when he was 4 years old after his appendix burst was at a nursing home with his Dad, visiting a man who was dying... 

Colton reached up and grabbed [his] hand...Colton peered earnestly up into [his] 

face and said, "It's going to be okay. The first person you're going to see is Jesus."

And Emma's right. Once again her child like faith is humbling and comforting to me. God is the prize of Heaven. His glory is the light of Heaven. There He has perfect relationship with His children, the way it was always supposed to be here on earth (and will be again one day). I may not know what color Jairus' eyes are, I don't know their sparkle or how they change when he smiles. But I do know that Jairus is in the presence of the Lord. I know that his eyes get the gaze upon the beauty of the One who loved him infinitely. Jairus sees God. And that is a very beautiful thought to behold. And, I'm certain, an even more beautiful sight to see. 

This is what Emma calls Jairus' "sleeping picture"
I think she's right, he looks all snuggled in for a rest :)