When We All Get to Heaven

Heather Allington

Heather writes for Sunday Song Book on behalf of the The Salvation Army Oshawa. As a lifelong member of the Army, she has loved these familiar - and some less familiar - songs for many years, and enjoys researching and writing about their origins. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and retired elementary school teacher who likes trying her hand at watercolour painting and poetry writing.

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus,
Sing His mercy and His grace;
In the mansions bright and blessèd
He’ll prepare for us a place.

CHORUS:
When we all get to Heaven,
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout the victory!

While we walk this pilgrim pathway
Clouds may overspread the sky,
But when travelling days are over,
Not a shadow, not a sigh.

Let us then be true and faithful,
Trusting, serving every day;
Just one glimpse of Him in Glory
Will the toils of life repay.

Onward to the prize before us:
Soon His beauty we’ll behold;
Soon the pearly gates will open;
We shall tread the streets of gold.

In John 14: 1,2 Jesus told His disciples: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

These words were the inspiration for Eliza Hewitt’s writing of the above song. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1851 and became a prominent hymnwriter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of her lesser-known hymns had a strong effect on George Beverly Shea, whose mother used to sit at the piano every morning and wake her family with “Singing I go along life’s road, praising the Lord.”

Eliza enjoyed teaching children Christian truths. At one time she worked in the Sunday School of the Northern Home for Friendless Children. She later became Primary Superintendent of the Calvin Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. She died in 1920.