Question from a reader:

I've been reading your book Heaven. I keep thinking about my strong desire to be a mom. I’m still young, but I continually ask myself: If I am never able to be a mother on this earth, what will the fulfillment of that desire look like in Heaven? Is it possible for me to be a mother in Heaven? I dream of my little girl dancing in the grass and laughing and playing. If I don’t experience that now on this earth, will I ever? And what would be the replacement?

Answer from Stephanie Anderson, EPM staff:

I pray the Lord might grant your prayer and desire on this side of eternity, to be a mom to children, including a precious little girl. (I have two, and they are the best!) But I love that you are thinking about eternity and how God might fulfill those desires on the New Earth.

In Heaven, Randy writes, “Jesus also said that those who follow Him will gain ‘brothers, sisters, mothers, children’ (Mark 10:29-30). I think of this when I experience an immediate depth of relationship with a fellow Christian I’ve just met. If you weren’t able to have children on Earth or if you’ve been separated from your children, God will give you relationships, both now and later, that will meet your needs to guide, help, serve, and invest in others. If you’ve never had a parent you could trust, you’ll find trustworthy parents everywhere in Heaven, reminding you of your heavenly Father.”

Randy also shares some thoughts in this article:

Isaiah 11:6-9 speaks of an Earth where ‘the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. . . . The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain.’ Since the larger context of Isaiah is concerned with an eternal Kingdom of God on Earth, it seems inappropriate to restrict this passage to a thousand-year kingdom that ends in rebellion and destruction of human beings.

The end of sin and the complete righteousness of all Earth’s inhabitants won’t come until the New Earth. But if Isaiah 11 is speaking of the New Earth, as does its parallel passage in Isaiah 65, who are the infants and young children playing with the animals? Is it possible that children, after they’re resurrected on the New Earth, will be at the same level of development as when they died?

If so, these children would presumably be allowed to grow up on the New Earth—a childhood that would be enviable, to say the least! Believing parents, then, would presumably be able to see their children grow up—and likely have a major role in their lives as they do so.

Although it’s not directly stated and I am therefore speculating, it’s possible that parents whose hearts were broken through the death of their children will not ­only be reunited with them but will also experience the joy of seeing them grow up . . . in a perfect world.

I love this thought, and if Randy is right about this, then perhaps those who love children but never had any of their own on the old earth will have the privilege of helping raise children on the New Earth.

We do know that what God has for us in eternity will be wonderful beyond comprehension!