I’m excited that my children’s book Wait Until Then is once again available, reprinted by our ministry. It’s been almost 17 years since it was first published, but the story is timeless—it is just as applicable now as it was then. (One of the main changes we had to make was adding all five of my grandsons’ names to the dedication. When it was first published, only the first three had been born, and even they were very young!)

It’s a very short story, only two thousand words, about a boy who loves baseball, and his grandfather who played one year for the Boston Red Sox with Ted Williams. The two both love Jesus, love baseball, and have something else in common too, but I don’t want to spoil the story. I hope it will warm your heart. (Plus, if you’re not a big reader you can invest ten minutes and say, “Hey, I read a whole book today—did you?”)

Wait Until Then emphasizes, in story fashion, that according to God’s Word, the best is yet to be. We who love Jesus do not pass our peak in this life, nor do we reach it. Our peak, or its beginning, will come in the resurrection, not before (Revelation 21-22). This life may be overshadowed by lost opportunities, but the life to come will restore so many of them and bring countless new and better ones. The New Earth will forever offer us opportunities to serve our Lord, behold God’s beauty in His restored creation, and go places and do things we rarely or never had a chance to do in this present world under the Curse.

So the best we enjoy here—great food and relationships and art and music and most of culture, including sports, I think—is a foretaste of what awaits us on the New Earth, when we’ll be without sin and death, and live with God Himself. We’ll behold the Headwaters of Joy, and the Source of all the lesser streams of pleasure, at His right hand forever, as Psalm 16:11 says. (On the book’s final pages, I present for parents and grandparents the biblical basis for this, so they can explain it to their children.)

The realistic pictures in Wait Until Then, done by Doran Ben-Ami, are stunning. And the final picture of the book—don’t peek when you get the book; remember it’ll only take you ten minutes to get there from page one—will really move you and capture your imagination.

Here’s a response to the original edition of Wait Until Then that we received, written by a mom:

As we were getting ready to go to church this morning, our seven-year-old son informed me, “Last night was the best night of my entire life.”

I immediately desired an explanation, “Why was that?”

“Because,” he replied, “it's the first time I ever cried for joy."

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, Daddy read me that book by Randy Alcorn,” he answered.

“Wait Until Then?”

“Yeah. And after he got done, I just laid in my bed saying the verses over and over again to myself. And I cried for joy.”

Well, the first time I read that email, I cried for joy too. And it still touches me years later.

As was true of the first edition, all the proceeds from the book will go to Joni and Friends, the wonderful ministry to the disabled founded by Joni Eareckson Tada. JAF is a ministry worthy of support, an investment in eternity. What they do is close to God’s heart. I hope you’ll take the time to see what they’re about.

My prayer is that Wait Until Then helps families to build into their children and grandchildren a sense of that anticipation for the New Earth to come. As we do, we’ll be fulfilling what Scripture says about “looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).