Oak Street Treehouse – Heaven
In my painting career, I’ve gotten to illustrate heaven twice now. The first was for an illustrative portrait of my grandma. It was an oil painting where she was seated with several of us grandchildren (and kids from her church) around her. A man (our friend Keith Caleb) was standing with his arms raised to heaven, worshiping, and above him were the golds and warm tones of throngs of people in heaven all facing Jesus. It’s strange that the place where we will spend the most time (eternity!) is so little talked about in the church. It’s as though pastors are afraid to “get it wrong,” so they focus instead on life here and how to walk by faith. Not so my grandma. She LOVED learning about heaven and teaching about heaven. In fact, she led a Bible study on that subject for over 7 years with several friends and ladies from her church.
Grandma would have loved to see me working on Oak Street Treehouse #3: The Day They Had A Party. (I’m guessing she does know and saw me working on it, according to many people’s interpretation of the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” in Hebrews 12:1.) In Oak Street #3 an old gentleman from their neighborhood often visits the kids at their treehouse. He’ll sit and eat cookies, tell them stories, teach them songs in Spanish. And he shows them a photo of his wife who passed away years before. Someday he’ll see her again in heaven. Spoiler alert…an ambulance comes and takes Grandpa GG away one day. The kids find out soon afterward that he has passed away.
The Oak Street kids have never faced death before. They have had a puppy or goldfish die, but they can’t comprehend saying a permanent goodbye to someone they love. Honestly, even as adults we struggle with this. Death never feels “right” because we weren’t created to die. It wasn’t until Genesis 3 that death entered this world. And though it was conquered by Christ on the cross (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), we still live in the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4).
As in the previous Oak Street books, the kids message God for help in processing the loss of their friend and neighbor, Grandpa GG. God helps them see that they can celebrate the life of their friend because he is in heaven and they will one day see him again! I love the next scene in the book. Families from all over the neighborhood come out to celebrate George Gonzales’ life! I like the simplicity and innocence of this scene. The Oak Street kids have planned and decorated their treehouse. They’ve made cookies and lemonade, a poster where people can write their memories of Grandpa GG, and a board of photos sharing their own memories of time with him. What has changed in their situation? Is their loved one still gone? Yes. Do their hearts still hurt when they miss him? Yes. But they trust God. And the action of bringing people together to fellowship and celebrate reminds them that they have hope. Romans 8:22-28 says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time…hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” In ALL things, good and bad, broken or whole, in spite of the evil in this world, God works for the good of those who love him. Romans 8:38-39 goes on to say that no thing (good, bad or evil, our present or future) can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
About the Artwork
The scene of heaven was one of my favorites to illustrate! I used bright colors, sweeping landscape to show the vastness of new heaven and new earth that we’ll one day get to explore. Grandpa GG is greeted by his wife but more importantly, he gets to shake hands with Jesus! Friends and family who’ve gone before him gather to welcome him in. I kept Grandpa GG and his wife in the same clothing and age of what the Oak Street kids remember him being because that is how they would imagine him in the scene. Jesus has the nail hole in his hand because Revelation 5:6 describes him as the only being in heaven whose scars from earth remain…he is known by his scars. No one can truly capture heaven in a picture book page. But I’m happy with the glimpse I was able to give readers.
The scene of the goldfish burial was another favorite to illustrate! When I Googled “goldfish burial” for ideas, I saw everything from plastic orange goldfish-shaped cases that people can buy online to a Pepsi-can cut open and stuffed with cotton as the final resting place for the beloved pet. The Pepsi-can was more in line with what the Oak Street kids would use. So, I took that idea and looked around my house for small containers similar in style to the metal can. My large toothpick box seemed just right! Half the top opens to retrieve toothpicks. I posed it and sketched the scene. The word “toothpicks” happened to be upside down when you open my container. But I like that touch! Seems to add a bit of innocent humor to the illustration.
The original plan was that Oak Street #3 would be the final in a trilogy. Dick Daniels has already mentioned ideas for a 4th book, so you can watch for that possibly in 2025. But at the time of illustrating this, I wanted page 32 to be a finale kind of shot. Dick and I discussed a montage of photos, and the resulting illustration you see above. The photo of his wife is stylized after several photos I found of older Hispanic women. However, Grandpa GG is based on my brother’s classical guitar teacher from college. From the moment Dick Daniels described the Grandpa GG character, I have pictured Ner Rojas in the role. He’s a teddy bear kind of gentleman who loves kids and is easily believable as the “Grandpa of Oak Street.” Ner also inspired the backdrop for the heaven scene. He is originally from Peru. So, I used Peruvian mountains sweeping down toward the group of people. And one of the people greeting him in heaven is Ner’s friend (and mine), Bill Rehr. These are the things we illustrators get to do! We weave our own stories into the imagery of a book. Ner and Bill have each lived out the verse that Dick Daniels chose for the back cover of this book. It is from Psalm 78 and says, “Listen…I’ll let you in on sweet old truths, stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother’s knee. We’re not keeping this to ourselves, we’re passing it along…so the next generation would know, and all generations to come – know the truth and tell the stories so their children can trust in God. Never forget the works of God.”
AMEN! I was blessed to be raised by parents and grandparents (even Great Grandparents) who told us the stories of God’s love. I was blessed to have mentors and “adopted” grandparents at church who also shared faith and love. If you are one of those parents or grandparents to the kids around you, THANK YOU! You are blessing the next generation and helping to fight the curse of this tired world. Whether your family has faced loss and death recently or not, I highly recommend the Oak Street Treehouse series to you, especially this 3rd book about heaven. These books make great baby shower gifts, birthday or Christmas gifts! You can find links for buying the books…and fun coloring pages or mazes…at our website: www.oakstreettreehouse.com – check it out today!
molliebozarth 