**CROSS POST** A Sense of Wonder

  This is one of those Does Anyone Else? posts. So... Does anyone else sometimes just sit and wonder what Heaven is like?

This is a frequent pastime of mine. Reading certain passages of the Bible can set off one of these musings, or thinking about a loved one who has died. Thinking about my own mortality is another fuse that lights my wonderings.

My best friend is currently not just "not doing well" but at the "may not make it" stage of her being ill. One morning last week, when I got the news from the family of her recent trip to the emergency room, I was sad for the rest of the day. I couldn't do anything but think of my own potential loss. I've already lost my only biological sister and now I was losing the person I call my "sister of the heart". 

I will miss her so much when she is gone. I will have no one like her to call and tell things that I could only tell her or my later sister. I will not get the phone calls and messages and support of this amazing woman who has been my friend for almost 30 years. I will be so much sadder and lonelier in this world for the loss of her.

Yeah. I spent almost an entire day in the I-zone of misery.

Then, because my Bible reading plan has me in parts of the books of Corinthians, I remembered the verses we inserted into my mother's obituary:

For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NASB)

Yes. That part, as the kids now say.

Once I re-read the passage, I stopped the tears. I began to think of how happy my sister-friend is going to be when she steps out of the pain of her earthly tent and into the joy and peace of her heavenly existence.  And then, I went on to muse about her being there in Heaven.

Will she meet my mother and sister again? Will they recognize each other? And will it matter to them in Heaven who they once were on this earth?

I like to try to imagine an existence without the sins and temptations of mortal life. What must it be like to have no social, mental, emotional, or physical ailments to deal with?

If this is what we mortals can imagine, 
just think what God has prepared.

The other side of thinking about Heaven and what it will be like, always makes me appreciate salvation. I think that the greatest joy of Heaven will be being with the Father, meeting Jesus face to face. And the worst of Hell is being forever not in the presence of our Lord.

So, I can never lose this wonder I have about Heaven. I know that my human mind cannot come close to imagining what it is going to be like but it's a comfort to me when I think of my sister leaving here for there.

Peace

--Free