Heaven

In the last month I have spent quite a lot of time thinking and reading about heaven. A couple years ago I read a book by Ted Dekker, I don't remember what it was called, but it was about setting our minds on eternity and living in that hope every day. When you think about it, really, life on this earth is not even a tiny speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. Compare 80 years on this earth to eternity...millions upon millions of "years", at least in the way we understand time. I can't comprehend it but I kind of visualize our lives on this earth as just a glimpse of life before we are really truly born to life. And we groan as in the pains of childbirth...waiting, and longing for a time when we no longer have to face death. I remember my mom telling me once about childbirth. She said there's incredible pain for a little while, but as soon as she held each of us in her arms, she completely forgot the pain, and she thought she must be the first person in the world to experience such deep joy. I guess her sickness was like that pain. The thing that hurts me more than anything is remembering her sickness, seeing her body being attacked and eaten by the sepsis infection that slowly overcame every organ in her body. But that's all in the past. Now she's experiencing a joy that far outweighs the suffering in her last days on earth. And for that matter, it even far outweighs the joy of having a child. Now she gets to be with even more of her children than she had on earth. Four unborn and one son who got to heaven before her. My grandpa remembers my mom saying after Derek died that she has a whole family waiting for her in heaven...now she gets to be with them. We just have to figure out how on earth we can live without her until we get to join them in that perfect place where we can experience real life.