The Father Who Saw His Dead Daughter in Heaven
A powerful story about the order of love
A father lies weeping on his young daughter’s grave.
This haunting medieval tale shatters expectations and teaches a profound lesson on the order of love.
Christians often think of morality as choosing between good and evil.
But much of morality is actually choosing between goods.
And no story teaches you this better than this one about a lost, little pearl.
Reminder: this is a teaser of our members-only deep dives.
To support our mission and get our premium content every week, upgrade for a few dollars per month. You’ll get:
New, full-length articles every Tuesday and Friday
The entire archive of members-only essays
Access to our paid subscriber chat room
The Lost Pearl
We come upon a man who has lost something.
A spotless pearl has slipped through his fingers and is now lost in the earth. He grieves and cries. His heart hurts with a cruel pain and a torment churns within his chest (Pearl, no. 2). He lays on the mound in the garden still seeking his pearl—but his pearl will never be found.
For the pearl that slipped through his fingers into the earth was his young daughter, not even two years old, now buried beneath him.
He lays on her grave crying out for his perfect pearl, and he drifts into sleep.
Providence provides the father with a vision. The man is transported to a celestial garden with crystal cliffs and jeweled forests (nos. 7-9). He walks until he comes to a river with waves like glass illuminated by light, shining like the stars.
On the other side of the river, he observes great heavenly cliffs, and at their base, walking by the river, he sees a beautiful young woman (no.14). She is arrayed like a heavenly queen, a bride of Christ, with glistening robes all adorned with pearls.
The longer the man looks, the more his heart knows that this young woman is somehow his daughter—now grown and arrayed with the beauty of heaven. She is his spotless pearl. Overcome with bliss, his heart expands just to contain the joy. The father cries out to his lost daughter.
Yet, the reunion does not go as he hopes.
