I went as a sponsor on a Junior High retreat this weekend with the kids from my church and had an amazing time. I got to hang out with the kids that I love so much and enjoy the beauty of God's mountains. After one of our meals I was sitting with some of the other sponsors and we started talking about what heaven might be like. I love thinking about this, because it is so unknown to us and I can let my imagination run wild! Some descriptions I have heard are streets of gold, no tears, signing praises to God, every knee shall bow, seeing Christ seated at the right hand of God, angels, and no fear or sadness.

There are not many scriptures that actually describe what Heaven will be like but one in Revelation 21 (NLT) says "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Exactly what all of this means I have no idea but it is a pretty cool description. I love that it says "there will be no more death and sorrow." I cannot even imagine what life would be like that, and I have a pretty good life. I think what confuses me about this verse is where it says a "new heaven and new earth." I don't understand that but I hope it does not mean that we will not remember the things of this earth because there are some pretty good things on this earth that I want to remember. Things like my friends and family, the mountains, funny memories, and how ice cream tastes. But will we be able to remember these things without remembering the bad things of our life too? I know that Heaven will be amazing and perfect and I will never be sad, but it makes me sad now to think that I might not recognize people. It is such a peaceful thing in this life to think that we will be reunited with the people who have died in Heaven someday. So, I guess I don't know how it will work, but I really believe in some form we will know each other and be able to cry tears of joy to celebrate our freedom in Christ together in Heaven. That is so beautiful.

Another thing about Heaven that scares me is the word "forever." The more I think about that word the less I understand it and that is how long we will be in Heaven. Woah! How does that work? That is a crazy good, but crazy scary thought. I think it is scary because it is incomprehensible to our minds and we don't really know what to do with it. But the truth of it is that God does not measure things by time. Just like God has always been, with no beginning or end, that is how Heaven will be. So, the word "forever" is something I try not to think about because I don't want to be scared of Heaven.

I think one of the most exciting things to me about Heaven is that I will get to sit at God and Jesus' feet and talk to them for as long as I want to about what really happened to Satan, how was it for Christ on earth to resist all temptation, ask God if he can lie, and tell him he did an amazing job creating the earth. I want to thank them both (or whatever) for dying for me and for letting me live such a great life for them. I also want to talk to Paul about the work that he did on earth and hear his cool stories about ship wrecks and angels in prison. Then I will move on to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and see how they feel about being the fathers of 3 different religions. I want to see Samson and ask him how it felt to be so strong, and hear from Jonah what the inside of that fish was like. I want to tell Adam and Eve that I forgive them for messing up because they really get a bad deal being the first people and all. I want to hear Ester's story about how she saved her people from death and how cool it is to be such a famous woman in the Bible. I know there are so many other people in the history of the world that I will want to talk to also and that will definitely take up a lot of that forever time.