Enlarging Your Heart for Eternity, with Colleen Chao

Dannah Gresh: Jesus promised He’d prepare a place in heaven for His people. Suffering has made this reality all the more beautiful to Colleen Chao.

Colleen Chao: I can almost hear the joy in His voice and see His eyes twinkling with excitement. “This is what I can't wait to show you. I can't wait to take you home to Me.”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Heaven Rules, for Wednesday, August 13, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Do you ever think about facing death? And when you do, where will you look for hope? Well, that’s what our guest today will talk about with us.

Colleen Chao is a wife, mom, and writer who shares a lot about God’s goodness in the unexpected chapters of her life. She’s written a beautiful book, In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God, and she’s honest about her journey with terminal cancer. 

We heard from Colleen last fall at one of our online events in the series Biblical Help for Real Life. Many of the participants that evening were walking through suffering, and Colleen wanted one thing for them: enlarged hearts for eternity.

Colleen has searched the Scriptures and developed a glorious vision for her eternal home. She knows it probably won’t be long until she’s there. Colleen knows that this will be a time of deep grief for her family, but as you’re about to hear from her, she knows there will also be glory.

Now, here’s Erin Davis to introduce Colleen Chao.

Erin Davis: How is it possible to face terminal, life-altering suffering and not let that suffering define you? I can think of no one better to help us wrestle—and we should wrestle because that’s a tough question—than Colleen Chao who has faced many seasons of suffering and is currently dealing with terminal cancer.

Colleen, if there was a way to hug you through this screen, I’d do it! But I’m so glad you’re here with us this evening.

Colleen: Oh, I would do it right back! And we’d be in a puddle of tears and laughing.

Erin: Oh, we would be in a puddle of laughing tears. What a beautiful picture!

Well, I said, “Do you want to have a conversation? Or do you just want to share what’s on your heart?” And you said, “I want to share what’s on my heart right now.” And so, we want to hear it, so take it away.

Colleen: Thanks, friend.

Yes, it is such a joy to be with you all. I wish I could pull out a chair at my table and pour you a cup of hot tea or coffee, whatever you prefer, but this space is sweet because God is here with us as only He can be, through time and distance.

I’m guessing there are some tonight that don’t know how they’re going to wake up in the morning to face another day of your suffering. I’ve been praying for you. You are precious to my heart even though I don’t know you, because God sees and He cares.

The thing that is just overflowing in my heart through not only this journey of a terminal diagnosis, but various sufferings that came before it and have come alongside of it . . . . Because it’s usually not one thing, right? It’s a multitude of things that cast us on Jesus’ goodness and mercy.

And the hope of heaven is so real and so precious to me. I feel like eternity is right here. It’s a veil that’s so thin. We’re all about to pass through that veil and see the Lord Jesus Himself. I try to find words for these things, but these are realities. We’re stabbing at mysteries, aren’t we? We don’t have the language for these eternal realities. 

But these are the things that hold us through the worst days and the darkest hours: the fact that there is a place prepared in Jesus’ presence that will make sense of all of this suffering. It’s a hope we can revel in. Look at God: He’s caring for our souls right now with these things.

Perhaps you’re familiar with Plato’s allegory of “The Cave.” The philosopher Plato so many years ago wrote of a cave, and I’ve just reworded it to keep it brief.

There was a group of people that had been chained to the wall of the cave since they were small children, and there’s a large fire blazing somewhere behind them. And in front of that fire, a walkway where people and animals pass every day, casting shadows on the cave wall in front of the prisoners.

Due to their chains, however, none of them can turn around to see anything behind them, so they watch the shadows intently, naming the various shapes and movements they observe day after day, year after year.

At long last, one of the prisoners escapes the cave, encountering the outside world for the first time, where his eyes are immediately blinded by the fire, which happens to be the sun. The dazzling brightness and the depth and dimensions and movements of this outer world are unbearable to him at first. They’re painful and disorienting. But in time, his eyes adjust, and he realizes that up til now, he has never understood reality before.

I love this allegory because when we’re in the midst of great suffering, the shadows seem to be everything. They seem to be the full reality, and we cannot imagine anything outside this cave. It’s a full experience, these shadows, but I love that these are shabby shadows of a more precious reality.

I love how Jonathan Edwards expressed this so beautifully. You’ve probably heard this quote before. He said, 

To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any or all earthly friends. These are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

I think what I’ve learned through—and I’m no expert on suffering at all . . . But I think through my own experiences, what I’ve learned is that pain and grief and sorrow and heaviness and difficulty in every shape and form become gifts that start peeling away what blocks the view of true reality, eternal realities.

It’s just so easy to get wrapped up in this world and cling and think that we’re deserving of certain things in our life and other things are unfair. But God, in His tender mercy and His power, takes those very things that we would avoid at all cost, and He uses them to start prying our fingers off that white-knuckled grasp on what we want, on what we think is best.

He uses that to show us this is the beauty of our faith, to trust Jesus for the things I’m seeing. He’s inviting us. It’s like this pricey and precious invitation into what is really real and what is more substantial than the desk that I’m sitting at right now. The realities are coming at us so quickly and are more substantial than anything else we can touch, see, smell, feel. But they’re beyond our comprehension.

I love 1 Corinthians 2:9 where Paul quotes Isaiah, and he says: 

What no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no human heart has conceived—God has prepared these things for those who love him.

So we can’t even fathom. If you think of the most beautiful things you’ve ever laid your eyes on—maybe it’s a sunset, or the ocean, or something like that. If you can just bring that to mind and think, That doesn’t even touch on the beauty that He’s prepared for us. Or think about what you’ve heard—maybe the most gorgeous musical score that you’ve ever heard. That doesn’t even scratch the surface. We can’t . . . there’s no category that we have for what is coming to us in eternity.

 

And my heart overflows when I think on John 14:2 where Jesus says, “I am going away to prepare a place for you.”

One of the joys of my heart is opening my home. When my house is full, my heart is full. I think it’s an extraordinary experience to open your door and create this space of belonging and joy and safety. I get excited. I pray over that, and I prepare in my heart. It gets full even at the anticipation of that.

So when I read Jesus’ words, “I am going away to prepare a place for you,” I can almost hear the joy in His voice and see His eyes twinkling with excitement. “This is what I can't wait to show you. I can't wait to take you home to Me. I’ve got you here to do really, really, really valuable, eternally valuable things. So, I don’t want you to come too early.”

I think the hope of heaven guards us from those ideas of, “I just want to end this early.” It guards us because heaven, what God is preparing for us, it means every day here is really, really, really valuable, even if you’re clawing your way to the end of the day by grace; even if it’s hard to imagine, like I said earlier, waking up to another day of suffering. It’s so valuable. On the other side we’re going to see why it mattered that we clung to Jesus on those hardest days.

So, the question is, “If this is inconceivable stuff, if we have no category for what’s coming at us in eternity, how do we train our eyes and our hearts on heaven?” How do we, like Paul said, “fix our hearts and our minds on things above.” How do we even do that if they’re so far beyond our comprehension? 

I love how Paul teaches us in Ephesians 3 to know the things that are unknowable and to comprehend a little bit more the things that are incomprehensible. He said: 

I pray that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know God’s love that surpasses knowledge. . . . Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think . . . (v. 18, 20)

And I’m snagging little phrases here. I’m piecing it together, but the idea is: we can’t know Christ’s love. It’s unfathomable. So pray to know it. And here we have heaven—it’s unfathomable. Pray that He would allow us to get glimpses that transform our hearts and that give us meaning on the darkest days.

So we pray, we coach our heart in the Word. We say, “God, enlarge my capacity for eternal realities, grow my heart that is so hard. It’s so sluggish. It’s so prone to bitterness. It’s prone to selfishness, despair, and apathy, but enlarge it for these realities.”

I love how C.H. Spurgeon when he was teaching on John 14:2 pointed us to Christ’s character. And he wrote this: 

He will do it well. When He says He’s going to prepare a place for us, He will do it well, for He knows all about us. He knows what will give us the most happiness, and what will best develop our spiritual faculties forever. He loves us, too, so well that as the preparing is left to Him, I know that He will prepare us nothing second rate, nothing that could possibly be excelled. We shall have the best of the best and much of it. We shall have all that even His great heart can give us. Nothing will be stinted. (from Spurgeon’s book No Tears in Heaven)

And so in the remaining few minutes, I just want to spend some time in some of these Scriptures that are enlarging my heart for eternity and helping me go the distance along suffering that doesn’t end and possibly gets harder and harder and harder. There’s no relief in sight. This is where the Word comes to life. It becomes so real. I feel like I can taste eternity because that’s what I’ve got to cling to. That’s what is going to get me all the way to heaven. I believe that Jesus is wooing me home.

I’m guessing that there are some of you that are facing, it doesn’t have to be a terminal diagnosis, but things that there’s not an end in sight. Jesus is going to become more precious and more real and more dear the longer that suffering goes on. He gets better and more palpable, and we experience that in His Word.

As we dig into that Word, there will be days where you can’t do a big Bible study. It’s too much. It’s too hard. There are hours that are just so crushing that all you can do is cling to one verse, and you’re going to cling that. That one Scripture is going to hold you fast.

Then there will be the days when you can dig deep. When you have those days, dig deep. Hide it in your heart. Have it ready. I’m still growing in that. I want to be more faithful about that.

Let me just steep in these. I’m just going to do a handful of verses to steep in with you right now. Sit in this, and let it wash over us. Little glimpses of what’s going to come to us when we get home.

Psalm 16:11 says: 

You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy; 
at your right hand are eternal pleasures.”

I have to say, Scripture is not hyperbolic. It doesn’t exaggerate. Like, when Jesus fasted for forty days, Scripture says He was hungry. (laughter) I’d be, like, “He was about to eat His arm, because He was famished. He was ravenous.”

So Scripture doesn’t exaggerate, but when it uses big, heavy, massive words, I pay attention—“abundant joy,” “eternal pleasures.” Again, if you think of your highest joy and your greatest pleasure that you’ve ever experienced, that doesn’t even start to describe what is being promised to us here. It’s shabby, and it doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Psalm 65:4 says: 

How happy is the one you choose 
and bring near to live in your courts! 
We will be satisfied with the goodness of your house, 
the holiness of your temple.” 

And look at these words: happy, live, satisfied, goodness.

Psalm 27:4:

I have asked one thing from the LORD; 
it is what I desire: 
to dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life, 
gazing on the beauty of the LORD 
and seeking Him in His temple.

And so, with these kinds of verses, there’s a couple more, I’ll end with them in a minute, but with these kinds of verses, what I do is I try to coach my heart. I think, Okay, I’m slow to learn. I’m hard-headed, hard-hearted. So, God, what does that mean to look at Your beauty? Because some people would say that sounds a little boring, and that might be our impulse sometimes, but let’s think of that thing that made our jaw drop and captured our eyes. We could not look away because it was so gorgeous. And now, multiply that by infinity, and it is going to be a beauty that mesmerizes us, that we can’t get enough of it.

Like, we will have so many things that God has prepared in heaven, but just looking at Jesus will satisfy every craving that we’ve ever had in our lives. And this is what this psalmist is saying. “That’s all I want to do. I just want to look at Your beauty,” and that beauty is coming at us. And we’re going to need resurrected bodies, and eyes, as part of those bodies, to be able to bear this kind of beauty.

And then Psalm 73:28: 

But as for me, God’s presence is my good. 

If we are already experiencing His presence, His goodness, can you imagine when all of the sin is gone? I can’t wait to be free of sin! I am a vile person. I really feel this more and more. And I think on the cusp of eternity, I’m just so aware that there’s just nothing good in me. Like, I can’t do one good thing apart from God.

Psalm 16:2 says that, right? “Apart from you I have no good thing.” I am just a total trainwreck apart from the Lord. But His goodness, His presence is transforming me and wooing me home. And in His presence, at home, His goodness is going to be so astonishing because we will be without anything to hinder our experience of His presence. Right now our sins muddle us up. All the things that keep us from experiencing Him in fullness will be gone.

And let me end with this: Isaiah 35:

They will see the glory of the LORD, 
the splendor of our God . . . 
The eyes of the blind will be opened, 
and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 
Then the lame will leap like a deer, 
and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy,
for water will gush in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert; . . .
and the ransomed of the LORD will return 
and come to Zion with singing, 
crowned with unending joy. 
Joy and gladness will overtake them, 
and sorrow and sighing will flee. (vv. 2, 5–6, 10)

I love using other people’s prayers when I don’t know how to pray. I’m going to pray a prayer from Robert Hawker, a Puritan that has ministered to my soul so much. So let me end us with this prayer. And I just encourage you, if you heard those references, to just spend some time in those Scriptures this week and say, “God, open up my heart so that I will long for eternity and I can see past this pain to what is coming.” Let me pray for us.

Lord, You have taught me of Your love, and my privileges in You, and so assured me of my everlasting safety in You and Your finished salvation. You have assured me that when You have accomplished all Your blessed purposes concerning me, You will bring me home into Your inner chambers of light and glory, and I will never leave but dwell in them and in the presence of God and the Lamb forever and ever. Hallelujah! What a morning that will be—different from every other!

Lord, how often do I now awake with thoughts of earth and sin and trifles and vanity? How have I opened my eyes this morning? Was it, dear Jesus, with thoughts of You? In that solemn morning, there will be no longer dreams as now, even in our waking hours, for all childish fantasies, shadows, doubts, and fears will be done away.

Precious Lord Jesus, cause me, morning by morning, while upon earth to awaken with sweet thoughts of You. Let the close of night and the opening of the day be with Your dear name in my heart, on my thoughts, and on my lips. And in that everlasting morning, after having dropped asleep in Jesus and in Your arms by faith, may I awake in Your embraces and after Your likeness to be everlastingly and eternally satisfied with You. Amen.

Nancy: That’s my dear friend, Colleen Chao, helping us to enlarge our hearts for eternity.

I hope you will take some time to meditate on those passages Colleen shared with us. They’re listed in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com, or on the Revive Our Hearts app. Reviewing those Scripture passages will be especially meaningful if you or someone you love is suffering and in need of hope and comfort.

You may be thinking, I need some regular doses of hope. Or perhaps you’re saying to yourself, “Wow, Colleen is so encouraging! I could really use a daily pep talk from her.”

Well, today is your day! That’s because we’re offering you Colleen’s book, In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God, when you make a donation of any amount to support Revive Our Hearts, and this offer is available today only. The subtitle for this special resource is 31 Days of Hope, Honesty, and Encouragement for the Sufferer. 

Colleen does such a great job of helping fellow sufferers embrace one day at a time, to trust and love Jesus more, and put themselves “in the hands of a fiercely tender God.” I know that this is a resource that will be a great blessing to you.

And here’s how you can get it: Contact us at ReviveOurHearts.com or 1-800-569-5959, make a donation of any amount to this ministry, and request your copy of Colleen’s book. Again, it’s called In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God. You can just ask for Colleen’s book.

Now, before we’re done today, I want to take a moment to tell you about our Ambassador Program. A Revive Our Hearts’ Ambassador is a woman who is involved in equipping and encouraging pastors’ wives and women’s ministry leaders in her area. She’s a connection maker. She reaches out through one-on-one meetings, phone calls, or encouraging emails. Our Ambassadors are devoted to prayer for the women’s ministry leaders in their areas. And they’re cheerleaders who are passionate about seeing women thrive in Christ.

If that sounds like a position you could be excited about, then we want you to know how you can get involved. Angela Temples heads up our Ambassador Program, and she’s here to tell you what next steps you should take.

Angela Temples: The best thing to do is to go to Revive Our Hearts’ website. There's an Ambassador link up under Leaders. Go on there, watch the videos that are on there. There are questions that are answered. There's a link on there where you can find out more information. We'll ask you a few questions, and we'll get you started in the process. Also, all our Ambassadors are listed there, so you can reach out to one in your area. Or one you think, Oh, I might like her. Reach out to her. She'll share information, pray for you, and encourage you.

We would love to see God raise up an Ambassador in every state. We have, I think, about twenty-two states represented right now. We would love to see one in every state. We're celebrating ten years of the Ambassador Program, and several of those ladies (I think there's nine of them) have served ten years. We would love to see God continue to grow that. You don't have to move to Michigan. They are asked to serve ten hours a month. Someone who thinks, I want to give back to what God has done in my life.

Nancy: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much, Angela. Again, if this sounds like something you’d enjoy being a part of, then we would love to have you reach out about joining our Ambassador team.

Dannah: That’s right, Nancy. For that information, just go to ReviveOurHearts.com/ambassadors.

Well, tomorrow’s episode is for the woman who has experienced the pain of fatherlessness. It’s a tender topic, and Blair Linne walks us through it with lots of grace. 

Thanks for listening today. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.