You have to see for yourself

Every preacher that preaches on heaven tells and retells this story of a little girl who was blind and had never seen. But a surgeon believed that he could restore sight or give sight to that child. The parents were willing. They did the surgery. The eyes were bandaged. There came that time when the bandage was to be removed. Would she be able to see? They unwrapped the gauze, took those pads from those precious little eyes and the doctor said, Sweetheart, open your eyes.

This little girl opened her eyes and blinked. The first thing she saw was the face of that doctor. Then the face of a nurse, then the face of her mother. She saw a tear for the first time in her mother's eye and she said, I can see. And she looked around at the things in the room that you and I take for granted and then she went to the window and looked outside. She didn't see the grass, she saw the green grass. She didn't see the sky, she saw the blue sky. She didn't see the flowers, she saw the multi-colored flowers. She ran back to her mother, squeezed her mother, said, Mama, Mama, it's beautiful. Oh, Mama, it's beautiful.

Mama, why didn't you tell me it was so beautiful? That mother, through tears of joy, said, Sweetheart, I tried to tell you, but you had to see it for yourself.

You know, I think when we get to heaven we'll say something like that to our heavenly Father. Father, why didn't you tell us heaven was so wonderful? He'll say, Well, I tried to tell you, I took the things that you value, streets of gold, walls of jasper, gates of gold—those are just symbols of greater glory, greater things, things that eye cannot see nor ear hear nor heart conceive of what heaven is going to be like. Heaven, friend, is a place of absolute perfection.