All Saints and Sinners

All Saints and Sinners

I lift up my eyes to the hills—

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

— Psalm 121

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There are nights I still wonder what heaven will feel like, not the clouds and the light, but the faces. The ones I long to see, and the ones I’m not sure I’m ready for.

We celebrated All Saints’ Sunday at church, and as I walked through the sanctuary and saw the line of photos, faces of those who now rest in the columbarium, my stomach turned. Each picture was meant to bring comfort, a reminder of eternal life and hope. But I found myself staring and wondering, will they be there too?

If heaven is perfect, what happens to the pain they caused?
If grace really means grace, does that mean they’re there too?

This thought has unsettled me off and on for years. As I get older, I feel that I’m slowly getting closer to finding out the answer. I wanted heaven to be a place of safety, of peace, not a reunion with the people who broke me. I wanted the light to fall only on the faces that brought warmth, not on the ones that taught me fear.

But grace doesn’t ask for my permission.
It doesn’t stay inside the lines I draw to keep my heart safe.

And sometimes, in the quiet, another question rises — one that frightens me more than the rest:
What happens to me if I can’t forgive them?

It’s not something I ever want to do. Forgiveness feels impossible, almost like betrayal, as if forgiving them would mean saying it was somehow okay when it never was. But then I wonder, what does that mean for my salvation? What does it mean for my seat beside Jesus if my heart still trembles at the thought of mercy for them?

I’ve been told that forgiveness is required of me, that if I want to be forgiven, I must forgive.
But no one has ever talked about the fact that maybe God knows the difference between refusing to forgive and not being ready yet.

I am not sure where I am on that spectrum, but I have to believe He sees the struggle, the way I keep coming back to Him with the same ache, the same confusion, the same prayer that always begins with, “Lord, I don’t know how.”

And maybe forgiveness, in His eyes, isn’t a single moment or a sentence spoken out loud. Maybe it’s the long, trembling willingness to let Him keep softening what’s still too hard.

There are days I fear that my inability to forgive makes me unworthy of heaven, an unworthy child of God. My anger feels like it disqualifies me from grace, from forgiveness, from belonging. I still carry this quiet dread that when the gates open, I might find myself standing outside, still tangled in the pain I could never release.

But then I try to remember: grace was never something I could earn. It was given before I even knew how to ask for it. Still, the doubts linger, not in my mind so much as in my soul. I still question my ability to reach heaven, to be welcomed into that perfect love when so much of me still aches with what was never made right.

Yet even in those moments of doubt, I think God holds me closer, not farther away. Maybe He knows that faith isn’t always confident; sometimes it’s trembling and unsure, whispered through tears. Maybe He sees that I’m still trying, still coming back, still letting Him find me in the middle of the struggle.

Sometimes I imagine walking into that light and seeing their faces, not the versions that hurt me, but the ones God meant them to be before everything went wrong. I wonder if they’ll recognize me, or if I’ll even need words to understand. Maybe forgiveness will finally make sense in that moment — not as something I had to work toward, but as something that simply is.

Heaven, I think, will be the first place where forgiveness feels easy — not because the wounds didn’t matter, but because they’ve been healed by something stronger than pain. Because the only scars in heaven are on Jesus, not me.

Here on earth, forgiveness still feels like holding fire. It burns even when I mean it. But in heaven, I think the flames will finally go out.

Maybe that’s what perfect peace really is, not pretending it didn’t happen, but knowing that somehow, God made it right.

Maybe heaven isn’t about having perfectly forgiven everyone, but about finally being free from the need to keep trying. Maybe God will finish the forgiveness in me that I couldn’t finish myself.

And when that day comes, when all that’s left is light and love, maybe I’ll finally understand what it means that mercy triumphs over judgment, even mine.

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Reflection

Forgiveness isn’t a door I open once. It’s a road I keep walking, slow, uneven, sacred.
And maybe heaven is where that road finally ends, where the burden of trying is lifted, and all that’s left is love.

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Prayer

Lord, You know how deep the wounds go,
and how hard it is to let go of what was never made right.
You see the struggle inside me — the ache, the fear, the longing to believe You’ll make it new.

Teach me to trust Your mercy more than my pain.
Hold me when forgiveness feels too heavy to carry.

If they are in Your kingdom, let me be glad they made it home.
And if I see them there, let me see them through Your eyes —
redeemed, restored, forgiven.

Heal what they broke in me, and finish what I could not.
So that when I reach heaven’s shore,
there will be no more fear in my remembering —
only grace.

Amen.