Have you ever wondered what the Savior meant when He said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions …”? (John 14:2)

Now, recently I came across an explanation of that verse that I really liked. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to share it with you.

Years ago, an elderly couple were sitting at home, quietly observing their wedding anniversary together, when the saintly old gentleman looked across the room at his wife and he said, rather facetiously, “Mama, where will we be one million years from now?”

“Oh, pshaw!” she said without so much as a sideward glance in his direction. Then all of a sudden, she laid down the spatula she was using to decorate a cake, came over to him, grasped the lapels of his coat, and pulled herself up on her tippy-toes until her lips were very close to his.

“I only know,” she said tenderly, that “I want to be with you one million years from now. And may I have … [our two sons] home for breakfast every Tuesday, just as we do now? And may I have all of the grandchildren home for Thanksgiving. And may I have a big Christmas tree and logs in the fireplace and all of the family home for Christmas, just as we do now?”

Well, by now she was really getting into this, and she was beginning to pound his chest with her fists while still holding onto his lapels.

“And may I have a big home with lots of rooms in it?” she continued. “And will you keep saving up for it – just as you are now? Promise me? – Promise me? Say ‘yes.’ Say ‘yes.’ Right now, say ‘yes!’”

Feeling a bit trapped, he promised, and then sealed the promise with a kiss.

With a million years to make good on the promise, it didn’t bother him too much, he said, to make that kind of a promise.

And then, kind of ‘thinking out loud,’ he said, “If I save … one dollar a year over a million years, I could save a million dollars … That should buy a mansion.”

“That’s what I want,” she said, “ a mansion. Jesus said, ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions,’ and we’ll need … a big one, [a big one] for [all of] our … children.”

And then from the depths of her heart, “You see, dear, my love for you is eternal, as is my love for our children … I want an eternal family. I want to share with you eternal life. Please, [Please] build for all of us a mansion in the sky. Save up for it, please.”

My dear and wonderful friends, I hope we’re all saving up for our mansion in the sky. To love God more than this world, and to love our families more than ourselves is to invest in a heavenly inheritance, filled with joy, filled with love, filled with family.

God bless …