When Jesus Comes to Take Us Home
Granny Barker, they called her. Eighty-eight years of living had etched lines of laughter around her eyes and creased her cheeks with a map of memories.
I met her when I became pastor of a small church in Seymour, Indiana. She was already there when I arrived, had been there for decades—a fixture as permanent as a steeple.
Some people carry light within them. Not the flashy kind that demands attention, but the steady kind that warms everyone nearby. That was Granny Barker. Her smile could thaw a frozen heart. Her voice wouldn’t command a stadium, but when she prayed, heaven seemed to lean in close to listen.
She shared her testimony with me one Wednesday after prayer meeting. There was no dramatic conversion, no rock bottom moment, no headline-worthy transformation. Just an eight-year-old girl who gave her heart to Jesus and never asked for it back.
Eighty years of walking with God.
Eighty years.
The Testimony We Rarely Celebrate
We love the dramatic testimonies, don’t we? The addict who found freedom. The criminal who found forgiveness. The broken who found wholeness. And we should celebrate these stories—they showcase the reach of God’s redemptive arm, how it extends into the darkest corners of human experience and pulls beauty from ashes.
But there’s another kind of testimony we often overlook. The testimony of the kept.
Those who never knew the particular bondage of addiction because Jesus set boundaries around their lives. Those who never experienced the hollowness of fame’s pursuit because they found significance in service. Those who never felt the crushing weight of living without purpose because they discovered it early in the arms of their Creator.
Granny Barker’s testimony wasn’t about being rescued from darkness. It was about being kept from it altogether.
And isn’t that a miracle too? In a world determined to pull us into its shadows, isn’t it miraculous when someone walks in light for eighty years?
The Psalmist knew this kind of testimony: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'” (Psalm 91:1-2)
This was Granny Barker’s legacy—not a dramatic escape from darkness, but a lifetime dwelling in light.
The Phone Call at 2 a.m.
You know certain phone calls are significant by when they come. The 2 a.m. call carries weight before a word is spoken.
“Pastor, get here quick. Sister Barker is about to pass.”
I dressed in a hurry, keys and wallet fumbling in half-awake hands, and drove through darkness to a dirt road home twenty miles from the church. The kind of place where stars shine brighter because there’s no competition from streetlights and storefronts.
I expected to find grief when I knocked on the door. Instead, I found wonder.
Tear-streaked faces greeted me, but these weren’t tears of sorrow. These were tears of holy astonishment.
“Pastor, you’re not gonna believe what happened!”
The small living room was crowded with family and church members, all speaking at once, all pointing toward a corner of the room, all wearing expressions that looked like they’d just witnessed the parting of a personal Red Sea.
“Tell me,” I said, confused by the mixture of weeping and joy.
They described how moments before I arrived, Granny Barker looked toward the corner of the living room, then up at the ceiling, her eyes tracking something invisible to everyone else.
“Do you see Him?” she’d asked, excitement threading through her voice, that familiar smile spreading across her face. “Do you see Him?”
And then, they said, a light—not from a lamp or headlights through a window—began to shine in that little house. It was as though someone had peeled back the ceiling to let heaven’s radiance pour through. She began to speak in her heavenly language, her eyes fixed upward, praise on her lips.
With her gaze locked on something—Someone—beyond the ceiling, she took her final breath.
The Promise Kept
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am there you may be also.” (John 14:2-3)
We often read these words at funerals, offering them as comfort to those left behind. But I wonder if we’ve missed their most beautiful promise. Jesus doesn’t just say He’s preparing a place. He doesn’t just promise we’ll eventually get there.
He says, “I will come again and will take you to myself.”
Not send an angel. Not simply open heaven’s door.
I will come. Personally. For you.
In that little house on a dirt road in Indiana, I believe Jesus kept that promise to Granny Barker. He came Himself to escort her home.
The God Who Both Rescues and Keeps
This is the dual nature of our Savior that we sometimes forget. He is both the God who rescues and the God who keeps.
He’s the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep, carrying it home on His shoulders. And He’s also the shepherd who leads the flock beside still waters, who guides along right paths, whose rod and staff are constant comfort.
Some testimonies showcase His rescue—dramatic interventions in lives spiraling toward destruction. “I once was lost, but now am found,” as the hymn declares.
Other testimonies, like Granny Barker’s, highlight His keeping power. Eight decades of being found, of walking in light, of never straying far from His side.
Both display His heart. Both reveal His character. Both declare His glory.
Jesus Himself declared this dual mission: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). To seek—there’s the rescue. To save—there’s the keeping.
The Salvation We All Need
Whether your story resembles a dramatic rescue or a lifetime of being kept, the fundamental truth remains the same: we all need salvation.
The respectable church member who’s never known addiction needs Jesus just as desperately as the person fighting for sobriety. The child raised in a loving Christian home needs grace just as much as the one who’s never heard the name of Jesus.
We may differ in the particular darkness from which we needed rescue, but we share the universal darkness of a nature separated from God.
Romans 3:23 levels the playing field: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And the verse that follows offers the universal solution: “And are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
This is the heart of the gospel—that Jesus came to seek and save. To find us wherever we are—whether in the depths of despair or the shallows of self-sufficiency—and to bring us home to Himself.
The Ceiling That Awaits Us All
Not everyone will see Jesus coming through the ceiling in their final moments. Not everyone will have family gathered to witness their passing. Not everyone will have eighty years of walking with God before that moment comes.
But the promise remains for all who have put their trust in Him:
“I will come again and will take you to myself.”
One day, for each of us who belongs to Him, Jesus will keep this promise. Whether through a dramatic vision like Granny Barker’s or through the quiet transition from this life to the next—He will come.
For some, He’ll reach into the darkest situations—addiction, despair, pain beyond imagining—and bring rescue at the last moment. His arm is never too short to save, His love never too exhausted to redeem.
For others, He’ll complete the work of keeping that began decades before—the final step in a long journey of faith, the homecoming after a lifetime of walking toward Him.
Either way, can you imagine it? The moment when the One who shaped the stars stoops down to personally escort you home? When the hands that were pierced for your salvation reach for yours? When the eyes that wept over Jerusalem look into yours with perfect love?
This is the salvation Jesus offers—not just rescue from sin’s penalty, not just deliverance from its power, but the ultimate redemption of His personal presence.
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)
The Question That Remains
Granny Barker’s question echoes through that little house on a dirt road, through the years, through the ordinary moments of our lives:
“Do you see Him? Do you see Him?”
Perhaps the most important question isn’t whether we’ll see Jesus at the end. It’s whether we’re looking for Him now. Whether our eyes are trained to recognize His presence, our hearts attuned to His voice, our lives aligned with His purposes.
Because the Jesus who will come to take us home is the same Jesus who walks with us today. The same Jesus who offers rescue and keeping. The same Jesus who seeks the lost and saves the found.
Do you see Him?
In the kindness of a stranger. In the beauty of creation. In the pages of Scripture. In the ordinary moments of extraordinary grace.
Do you see Him?
If not—if your eyes have been focused elsewhere or your heart distracted by lesser things—know this: He sees you. And He is still in the business of both rescuing and keeping.
Whether you need dramatic intervention or daily preservation, His invitation remains: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
The ceiling will open for each of us someday. The question is whether we’ll recognize the One who comes through it.
Granny Barker did. After eighty years of walking with Him, how could she not?
And perhaps that’s the greatest testimony of all—to live in such close communion with Jesus that when He comes to take us home, we don’t need an introduction.
We just smile and say, “I see Him.”
