Playing Pinball with Life

God clearly has a sense of humor.

While much of America spent this week battling hurricane-force snow, record lows, and the kind of ice that makes your driveway look like an Olympic luge track, I’m watching the sun rise over the Atlantic. Pink clouds. Mild waves. A forecast promising near 70 by afternoon.

I’m in Hilton Head, SC, and hosting my Winter Art Escape artist retreat, reconnecting and painting with old friends and new, each of whom had stories of missed flights, white-knuckle drives, and the kind of slipping and sliding that makes you question all your life choices.

Meanwhile, I’m sipping coffee in paradise, wondering how I got so lucky.

Except I know exactly how I got here, and “lucky” had little to do with it. Blessed would be a better term.

The Pinball Theory of Life

When I was a kid, there were these magnificent contraptions called pinball machines. You’d stand there gripping two paddles, fire a silver ball upward into a maze of lights and bumpers, and pray it didn’t ricochet straight into oblivion. The goal was simple: Land that ball in the high-value hole. The reality was chaos. No matter how skilled you were, random bumpers would send your ball careening in directions you never intended, landing you in circumstances you never predicted.

Which, as it turns out, is a perfect metaphor for life.

I run my schedule with surgical precision. Every calendar slot filled. Meetings stacked like Jenga blocks. Recording sessions, broadcasts, online events, conference calls, employee and customer meetings, in-person conferences … barely a breath between them. I’m the guy who plans his bathroom breaks. And yet, all it takes is one unexpected bumper — a flight delay, a last-minute emergency, someone running 20 minutes late — and suddenly the entire day ricochets in a new direction.

The thing is, I’ve made peace with other people’s chaos. When someone’s late to my meeting, I don’t stress. But that pinball still fires off sideways, creating a cascade of rescheduling, apologies, and dominoes falling in slow motion.

Our New Post-College Rhythm

The last few years, my bride and I developed a rhythm: Christmas at home with the family, then we’d load the dogs in the back seat and make the two-day drive south to escape the frozen tundra we’d tolerated most of our lives. We don’t fly because we need a car, and our dogs — well, let’s just say they don’t have the credentials for air travel. 

But this year, the rhythm broke. One of the triplets moved home between college graduation and his first real job, starting mid-January. Another came home job-hunting and landed something around the same time. So we stayed put to be with our kids. I hosted Watercolor Live from home, attended a two-day board meeting, and had exactly one week — one glorious week — to escape to sunshine before my next trip.

Packed and ready to go, a week ago Friday, we were minutes from loading the car.

Then Chewy, our oldest dog, a tiny maltipoo with more personality and confidence than any dog we’ve ever owned, started crying out in pain as his body slowly deteriorated at 17 years. The meds that had been working stopped working. And a week ago yesterday, his suffering stopped and we said goodbye.

The Grief Nobody Warns You About

Only pet owners truly understand the weird, gut-punch grief of losing a fur-baby you’ve held and played with for years. It’s surreal. They’ve always been there — background music to your life — and suddenly the soundtrack goes silent. You trip over little landmines: blankets, leashes, bowls. Each one detonates a fresh sting.

My friend Steven Burke lost his beloved cat, Charcoal, the same week. We commiserated. There’s something oddly comforting about shared grief, even when it’s about creatures who can’t talk back but somehow communicate more clearly than most humans.

Here’s the strange part: Losing Chewy that week actually worked out. If we’d been halfway to Florida when it happened, we’d have been dealing with it in a hotel parking lot somewhere in Georgia, debating whether to turn around or keep going. Instead, we were home. Together. Present. And Chewy was with us and part of the family as he faded away.

Now we can’t leave for two more weeks anyway — I had to fly here for Winter Art Escape, then fly back to host another online event, Gouache Boot Camp, and shoot a new pilot for PBS, before we can finally slip away for a brief stay.

The pinball landed exactly where it needed to land.

Which brings me to the question everyone asks when they lose someone — furry or otherwise: Will I see them again?

The Heaven Question Nobody Wants to Answer Honestly

Our pets supposedly don’t have souls. At least that’s what most theologians tell us. I hate that answer, because anyone who’s looked into a dog’s eyes knows there’s something there. Personality. Loyalty. Love that puts most humans to shame.

Some people say pets go to heaven to be with us. Others say they reincarnate — dogs become humans, humans become dogs, and we all keep cycling through until we get it right. I’d like to believe my dogs will meet me in heaven one day, tails wagging, ready to spend eternity playing fetch.

But heaven is a tricky subject.

Do Bad People Go to Heaven?

Have you ever been to a funeral where everyone talks about some questionable character like he’s Mother Teresa? “He’s in a better place now,” they say, while you’re sitting there thinking, Really? That guy? The one who stole from his business partner and cheated on his wife? THAT guy gets heaven?

Yet pretty much every funeral treats the afterlife like a participation trophy. Everybody gets in. Just show up to life, then collect your golden ticket on the way out.

Except that’s not how it works.

“I’ll be there because I’m a good person,” some say. Sounds reasonable. Except the Bible doesn’t grade on a curve. No matter how good you are, good doesn’t buy your ticket.

“I’ll earn my way in by doing good works,” others insist. Volunteering. Charity. Helping little old ladies cross the street. Noble? Absolutely. Enough? Not even close.

Here’s where I lose some of you, and I know it. I’ll get emails saying, “I loved your Sunday notes until you got religious.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not religious.

Being religious means belonging to a religion — following rules, checking boxes, attending the right building on the right day, saying the right words in the right order. That’s not me. Rick Warren nailed it: “You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.” Many religions tell you the only way to God is through them — their rules, their rituals, their secret handshake. Some claim all religions are just different paths up the same mountain, that it doesn’t matter what you believe because we all end up in the same place.

I think that’s naive. Especially if you’ve actually read the texts. They contradict each other on pretty fundamental stuff — like whether God is one being or many, whether salvation is earned or given, whether Jesus was divine or just a really good teacher.

Nothing to Earn, Which is Refreshing

The bottom line: You cannot earn your way into heaven. It’s not Jesus plus church attendance. Not Jesus plus helping orphans. Not Jesus plus saying the right prayers. Not Jesus plus anything.

The “plus” comes after. A changed heart creates the desire to be better, to love more, to help others. The good works flow from grace, not toward it.

Billy Graham put it perfectly:
God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’”

Which is why — painful as it is — we’re probably not going to see our dogs in heaven. Or good people who never accepted the invitation. It’s not complicated: Be a Jesus follower, not a religious person.

There are hundreds of documented witnesses who say Jesus wasn’t just a prophet. He died on a cross — horrifically, publicly — and was resurrected, and was seen by over 400 people afterward. This isn’t just religious propaganda; it’s documented in ancient texts written by people who had no reason to lie and every reason to recant when some were being executed for their testimony.

One of my favorite books is The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel — an atheist investigative reporter who set out to debunk Christianity once and for all. His conclusion? The evidence was so overwhelming that his only rational option was to accept Christ, who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Grace for Leaky Cups

Now the critics are sharpening their pitchforks, so let me be clear: I’m not saying this to earn brownie points or secure my reservation upstairs. Despite all the terrible things I’ve done — and trust me, there’s a list — I’ll be there. Because we’re forgiven. All of it. Every mess, every failure, every regret, when we accept Christ. Therefore even bad people can be forgiven.

Here’s my favorite analogy:

Imagine a paper cup filled with water, and the water represents God’s Spirit; His presence, His glory living in us. We were created in the image of God, designed to hold His Spirit, for fellowship with heaven itself. But when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, it shattered that image. It pierced the cup. Suddenly we couldn’t hold water anymore.

Every sin we commit pokes another hole. No matter how hard we try to be good, to fill ourselves with God’s presence, it leaks out. We can’t contain Him on our own. Our brokenness destroys our intimacy with God.

But when we accept Christ, He covers our sin — like slipping another perfect cup around our broken one. Now the water doesn’t leak out. The essence of Christ, the Holy Spirit, can fill us and stay because Christ has covered every hole, every flaw, every sin. There are no leaks anymore.

That’s called being justified by faith. That’s what it means to abide in Christ. And with the perfection of Christ covering us, we can enter Heaven. Otherwise scoundrels like me would never have a chance.

The struggle is that we keep trying to do it on our own, forgetting that we need that outer cup covering us constantly.

Or picture this: You’re being robbed. A man points a gun at you. Just before he fires, someone else steps in front and takes the bullet because he loves you that much. That’s what Christ does when we accept Him.

But here’s the part nobody tells you in the brochure: Life doesn’t get easier. Things don’t magically improve. Problems still pile up. Bills still come due. Dogs still die. The pinball still hits bumpers you didn’t see.

But you don’t go through it alone. And sometimes — often, actually — He wants you to have problems so you’ll learn to depend on Him instead of yourself. Part of accepting Christ is losing ourselves, our pride.

Prayer doesn’t always work the way we want, either. I’m thankful for most of the things I prayed for that didn’t happen, because in hindsight I can see that something better came along.  I just had to be patient and trust the plan — even when the plan looked like chaos.

When I read my Bible daily, things go better. I’m more focused. More grounded. When I don’t, I slip up, say things I regret, make decisions I have to undo later. It’s a lot like painting. If I don’t paint every day, I slip up. If I don’t stay in the Word, and in prayer, I slip up.

I’m far from perfect. I battle my ego constantly. I fight for humility, trying to remember that the good things that happen aren’t because I’m special — they’re grace. It’s a constant struggle, because human nature wants to beat its own drum, to claim credit, to believe we’ve earned what we have.

But I believe all good things come from Christ.

Why I’m Telling You This

If you’re still reading — and bless you if you are — I’m not sharing this to convert you. I don’t have that power. But once you find this kind of joy, you kinda want others to experience it. The Bible says we’re invited, and if our heart is stirring, we need to accept the invitation. I’m not here to push anything on you. I’m just sharing my thoughts on heaven so you can understand a little more about who I am, what I stand for. I don’t want to be the church lady or act in the ugly way the media portrays Christians.

It’s hard to understand why bad things happen to good people. A young star quarterback with a huge future was killed in our state a couple of weeks ago. It’s heartbreaking to see TV ads with kids in cancer clinics, fighting battles they didn’t choose.

Why?

All I can say is: Trust the plan. There’s a reason we may never know. The pinball hits bumpers we can’t see, ricochets in directions we don’t understand, and lands in holes we didn’t know existed.

But someone’s running the machine.

Chewy’s Last Lesson

I miss that little guy. His blanket is still in the corner. His bowl is still by the door. Every time I see them, I feel the sting.

But here’s what I’m learning: The unexpected redirections aren’t accidents. They’re part of a game I can’t follow from where I’m standing. Maybe Chewy’s timing wasn’t random. Maybe staying home that week mattered for reasons I’ll never understand.

The silver ball is still in play. The flippers are still in my hands. And even when the ball drains and the game seems over, someone keeps feeding in quarters to let me play again.

That’s grace.

And I’m grateful — even through the tears, even seeing the empty dog bowls, even through the pinball surprises I never saw coming.

See you next week,

Eric Rhoads