Shrapnel

Sometimes my brain explodes in Bible class.  I'll be reading along, listening to my sisters and brothers chat about the verses when all of sudden someone will say something I've never thought of quite that way before and the possibilities will blow up my brain.  It might be days before I can clear my brain of all the shrapnel and implications.

This World Is Not My Home

One of my favorite series is  Anne of Green Gables.  One of the saddest scenes in the  books is in Anne of the Island (*Spoiler Alert*).  Anne is having one last conversation with her friend Ruby Gillis, who is dying of tuberculosis.  Ruby, who has been denying the inevitability of her death all summer, finally confesses to Anne how afraid she is to die because she knows heaven will not be what she is used to.  Every time I read the book, I cry reading Anne's next thoughts:

More than a Mansion

Some of my favorite hymns are the ones about heaven.  From "I'll Fly Away" to "When We All Get to Heaven," I love singing about the inheritance God has for us.  After a week of seeing the sin in the world, I need a recharge. Singing about peace in the valley helps me remember Peter's inspired words: 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3-7)

What I'm looking forward to most is not the mansion over the hilltop or the streets of gold or crystal sea.  No, what I am eagerly anticipating is the Presence of God.