Life to Come

There is one thought that makes all the suffering of being in chronic pain endurable for me. When I feel as if I just cannot take another moment of agonizing pain in this body of mine, when I feel as if each breath is impossible, each step unbearable ... this thought alone can ease the pain: HEAVEN. I am not alive in this life only ... but as someone who has accepted the grace of Jesus Christ as my Savior I know that this life is but a shadow of the life to come for eternity in heaven. The thing that makes heaven so precious to me is that I know that there I will be able to see God. I have loved God from my earliest memories, and I have loved Him through years of confusion and illness, I have been unable to escape from His amazing love even when I contemplated leaving Him - I was unable to because I know His love. Being always in the presence of my Jesus will be joy unspeakable. Seeing that Holy Face with my own eyes ... unfathomable. Even now as I sit here and write - I find that the thought of being in heaven forever with my God takes my breath away.

In the Bible the Apostle Paul wrote: "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." (1 Corinthians 15:19) What he is saying is that if we believe and put our hope in Jesus for this life on earth only ... what's the point? The life to come in heaven is where all of our deepest hopes put securly in Christ Jesus will come to fruit. We will finally see the big picture. We will finally see our God face to face. We will have no more pain, no more tears, no more suffering. Oh the thought!!!

Let no one pity us who have found the peace and joy of our Jesus as we look expectantly toward heaven!