A Lilac Lined Lane

This past Friday evening I was driving along a clear, rushing river in a narrow valley between sharply rising Appalachian foothills. Even though it had just stopped raining and dark clouds were still lowering, I was struck with the Spring beauty all around me. As the bright evening sun suddenly broke through the clouds, I was struck particularly with the beauty of the lilacs that bordered the road for miles. The sunlight made their pinkish-purple blooms literally glow as they were accented by the white-flowered trees just above and around them. It was as if my mind took a snapshot. My mind photo froze the sight in my memory-a country highway and a parallel sparkling stream, stretching to a vanishing point on the distant horizon, both lined on the two sides by the lilacs. It will be a sight branded on my mind for my lifetime. But, that sight reminded me of heaven. And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:1-2). Though there is some debate of the proximity of the tree(s) of life, the river, and the street-does the river flow down the middle of the street or does the tree grow there and the river goes down the middle of the street?-the lilac-lined lane I was on made me think of this description of heaven. On the country road I was traversed, the lilacs played out and the road ended at a freeway at the end of the valley. Follow heaven's tree lined street and its parallel river upstream, and it will end at the throne of God. If earth's springtime lilac-lined lane was so beautiful, how beautiful must heaven's eternal tree of life lane be?