heaven

      It's hard to think about eternity in some ways. It's just so BIG and whenever I concentrate hard and try to imagine what it will be like and get my mind around it, I never can.  That's no surprise, I guess, because we won't ever in this life wrap our minds around eternity.  Shoot, I don't even know if we'll be wrapping our minds around eternity in heaven. But sometimes heaven seems more real to me than others and the fact that one day when I die I'll go there - amazes me.  It hits me like someone broke the news to me for the first time. You know those things that have been hard to do - almost impossible at first - and very scary?  For me it was the first time Mama taught me to swim.  In the Olympic size pool at Oxford where scuba divers would blow bubbles 15 feet down and everything seemed  bigger than it does now {even now that place is huge} I was terrified.  I was so afraid that her arms wouldn't catch me if I went under and that I'd get water in my nose and that my toes wouldn't touch bottom.  But more than that, I remember feeling afraid of what I didn't know. I had never done it - what could happen?  What would hurt?  Would she help me?  Yes.  Then there was the tooth pulling.  Aghh...The boys were determined that the string to tooth, to door would work.  But it didn't because I always chickened out and bent over when the door would slam shut.  Mama would get a hot washcloth and I'd hold it in my mouth.  One night I went to where she was sitting on our old blue couch {i used to sit on that couch and cry whenever the moody steve green tape played}.  She said she would pull it for me but no no - I wouldn't hear of that.  So I kept whining and worrying over it until she said she would just 'look at it' and when she looked at it, a quick twist and jerk and burning and blood and babam! It was out.   I guess  I think about dying that way, almost.  It's that terrifying moment, only it will be a beautiful moment for us.  One that requires trust - more and more trust.
 I remember when Uncle Doug was sick, I was sitting on his hospital bed holding his hand and could  barely see him from wet eyes, but he was so calm.  He said 'Baby, I'm not afraid.  I'm ready to go if he wants me now.   I think of earlier this year when one of our friends was dying - A lady who would leave 11 kids behind and one of the most adoring husbands. She lay there holding onto life - by what???  sheer will, maybe? it was so weak - her breathing.  and labored.  the man would stroke her face and say 'It's o.k. beautiful, you can go...' It was so plain to me, there in that dark room, that she was standing on the edge of the river that every christian stands on before he crosses it.  The river must have seemed so big and deep and cold.   But a little exciting too, I think.  At that place the Christian is almost home.  He's finishing his course, crossing the finish line and entering something that is unfathomable to us.  Eternity.  What will he find on the other side of that dark, rushing water?  They say it's beautiful and a place where all sorrow is wiped away.  But will we lose who we are?   Will we remember once we cross it?  What will the shore of that place feel like?  Will the air smell differently and will my feet touch the bottom or will something try to grab me while I try to cross?  Will He say hello Himself and will I know who's who? Will everyone turn around and look at me like they do at church when I  walk in late?  Does everyone REaLLY have a harp?  and will I wear a tunic?  will there be grass or will it just be clouds?  Can I talk to everyone I've told myself  I would, or will people be singing throughout all eternity like they do at a sacred harp convention before lunch - nonstop?  Will there be trees?  Can I sit under one and think?  Will I need to think there?  What about waterfalls? Will there be waterfalls and can I look behind all of them?   It only makes sense to me that if earth, with all its beautiful places was just the work of his hands, and was made only for mortals, then a place that Jesus said He was preparing for and has spent all this time preparing for us - that it will be so far beyond what I call beautiful and what has been known to us as beautiful, that earth will seem shabby after seeing heaven.  And time?  Unmeasured time...Non - existent, time -  that will be the dream.  Heaven.  Amazing that it is ours.