A Million Little Thoughts

We’ve just been through three weeks of some scary trials, probably worse than we’ve faced during all of our almost 47 years of married life. During those weeks, my husband, Randy, spent eleven days in the hospital on oxygen with covid. He’d started out thinking he had a cold, and even after two urgent care visits and two negative covid tests, we had no idea this was what he was dealing with. But when we ended up in the ER and they performed the test correctly, we knew.

I’ve never seen Randy so sick, or been on my knees asking God to spare his life. I can’t imagine life without him, and I was not ready. (Are we ever?) I had friends in the body of Christ from across the U.S. to England praying for him. No one could visit him except me because of course, it was covid. And yes, I ended up catching it from him, but my case was supremely mild in comparison.

Still…there were a few days when both of us wondered if this was the end for him. While no one likes to think they could lose their mate, and so quickly at that, we both knew, and Randy felt it keenly even in the brain fog of covid, that Jesus Christ would carry him through–either to healing in this life or on into the next. He and I both have that blessed hope of eternal life with Jesus. And like the Apostle Paul said, when you are facing that possibility, your desires are torn between the two. We long to be with Jesus, but we also want to stay on earth because we don’t want to leave the other alone. Someday we will face that reality, but thankfully, that day is not yet.

A million little thoughts went through my mind during those days. Suddenly, everything landed on my shoulders from care of the things Randy normally handled to figuring out what to eat, because who’s really hungry at a time like that, to caring for the cats who also lost their appetite, to even feeding the birds and other wild animals who visit our home each day. Carrying on in a house that was far too quiet and suddenly very lonely was hard. I found that I absolutely had to surround myself with positive, praying friends, who a time of two figuratively talked me off the ledge.

Fear knocked on my door a few nights before bed, so I went where I always go in trying times. The carpet in our bedroom makes for a soft landing when you are on your knees pleading for life and grace. And God carried me too because I slept peacefully most every night, and when I did wake up, I prayed for Randy again and dozed back to sleep. But the truth is, I was also exhausted, physically and emotionally.

Before this happened, I’d begun reading a book about near death experiences, and found myself reminded of how much God loves each and every one of us and how beautiful and bright and lovely and pure heaven will be on that day when we meet Jesus face to face. So many people today don’t want to think about life and death, heaven and hell. We’ve invented all kinds of ways to deny them all because we want to live our best lives here and now.

But is this really all there is? Our best life is in a fallen world that grows increasingly angry and dark by the day? The older I get, the less I can imagine wanting to live forever in a mortal, decaying, aging body on an earth that we’ve corrupted and continue to destroy in our vain attempts to make a better world.

History shows us that humans will never create the utopia God created in Eden. Deep in our spirits we long for the return to that place of paradise which was lost. We were created for eternity with our Maker but we can’t have it if we don’t ask Him. Why is it so hard for us to believe what He said? Why is it so hard to realize that we are the finely-tuned, hand-crafted, image-bearers of God?

Heaven is eternity with God our Maker. It’s not boring or exclusive in the way some think it is. It’s only exclusivity is that nothing evil will live there. And anyone who wants to be there and believes in the One who made a way for us to regain our broken relationship with God can do so.

The Phillipian jailor asked, “What must I do to be saved?” (Saved from that hell people want to deny. Saved from sin that separates us from God. He understood what being “saved” meant.)

The answer? “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Jesus preached a message of repentance (turn from sin) and faith. Believe. Confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved.

Confess and believe. Give up our broken lives for His perfect grace. Give up our fear for His peace. Give up our “best life” now for eternal life, which starts the moment we believe and carries us into a glorious new heaven and earth forever with Him.

This demonic disease that took hold of Randy’s body for the past two weeks from which he is slowly recovering, did not have the final word. By God’s grace it did not win this time. We pray it or anything like it never will. But when that day comes for either one of us to meet our Maker, we do not fear it. Oh we may fear being alone without the other, and we would certainly love to avoid it altogether and just be whisked away to heaven together, but that’s a post for another time.

For now, I hope if you are struggling with doubt or don’t even know if any of this eternity talk is true, I pray that you will search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. God reveals the truth to those who seek Him with all their heart.

~Selah