Glimpses of Heaven - pt 1

With the onset of some warmer weather (high 80’s) around here for the last few days, I’ve been taking Fiver for a walk earlier in the morning.*  Once again, I had to smile and laugh as we walked down the gauntlet of backyards that face the golf course and their array of dogs that bark at us every time we walk by… both coming and going to the neighborhood park. 

Today, as I was looking at the different dogs and saying hello to them with the names I’ve made up for them like, Brownie the brown and black German Shepherd, her faithful, tiny, wild-haired companion Sparky, Blackie the old black German Shepherd next door and Butch the Lab mix with a cropped tail and his Pug yard-mate Barney, it suddenly dawned on me that they weren’t all SMACK-TALKING to Fiver every day, but were most likely FLIRTING with him!  From what I can tell from my distant observation point, they are almost all females!  No wonder Fiver gets all excited every time I take his harness off the coat rack near the front door!

I’ve also been getting excited lately as I’ve felt the freedom to read some books about heaven.  I picked up one of them back in October but was never able to do more than thumb through a few pages without getting all emotional.  I thought about it again recently and like I said, sensed the “Okay, the time is right” sort of feeling and began to read it.

This particular volume is entitled “Appointments with Heaven” by Dr. Reggie Anderson.  It had caught my attention on that chilly day in early October of last year as I perused the shelves for interesting reads at the large Mardel Christian and Education Bookstore in Tulsa, across the street from the Home Depot that I used to work at.  In many respects the store reminds me of the old but large, One-Way Books Christian store in downtown Santa Rosa in the 1980’s… just a whole lot newer!  It was always an adventure for Piper and I to go in there and shop… we never knew what gems we might find!

I’ll be honest with you, as I have always been a little skeptical when I read about people’s accounts of heaven, but had a peace about this one.  When I turned over to the forward of the book I learned that the author is a long-time personal friend of the Steven Curtis Chapman family and was the first one they called when they suddenly lost their youngest daughter.

I began to read in earnest a couple of day ago and found that I could hardly put it down.  In the first section of the book he details a couple of “dreams” he had, one as a child and another as a young man while attending medical school.  It was the second dream when he saw into heaven, that kept me glued to the book.  His descriptions of the physical surroundings about him were very similar to other accounts of heaven that I had read before.

He detailed how the colors, fragrances, sights, sounds and feel were brighter, deeper, sweeter, more intense and almost indescribably more beautiful than the most wonderful places he had visited on earth.  Then he talked of how the friends that had gone on before him came up and conversed with him… without speaking words.  These were family and friends of whom he had had been extremely close to in his childhood before they were murdered in the most awful of circumstances.  Because of that traumatic event, he had slowly but surely turned away from the God of his childhood and replaced it with the god of science.

I won’t go into all the details, but his turnaround had begun a year or so earlier when he began to physically observe the complicated makeup of the human brain and realized that a Higher Power had to have a hand in creation.  It also involved a beautiful Christian coed who would have nothing to do with him because he was not a Christian.

His descriptions of how ecstatic and happy his friends now looked and the peace that flowed from them in their heavenly home, instantly confirmed many things that I believe that the Lord has been showing me over the last year and a half about Piper’s new home in heaven.  Scripture insights like Ephesians 1:4 where Paul writes that “he chose us through Christ to be holy and perfect in his presence” combined with similar verses such as Psalm 16:11 that declare that “Complete joy is in your presence. Pleasures are by your side forever” (God’s Word ©) were brought to light with how he saw things in the heavenly realm.

What really caught my attention was his explanation of how wonderful their physical appearance was.  There were no scars from the mortal wombs they had received, their childhood blemishes and physical imperfections were gone and replace with smooth glowing skin.

The shell that Piper left behind was not even close to the once healthy, vibrant and beautiful form that she displayed for the majority of her 65 years on this earth.  The descriptions of his friend’s heavenly features once again, confirmed the vision I have had of Piper in heaven today!

The picture the author painted of Jesus is incredible and beg to draw the reader beyond the reaches of one’s human understandings and limitations.  I’ve barely touched the bases in the book and can hardly wait to pick it up again, in order to learn about the divine abode of my companion of 48 years… and to look with an ever-growing anticipation of what’s ahead for me …and you who are believers in Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord! (See Romans 10:9 for the “how to’s" of salvation)

I’ll share more in future blog posts, but I’ll let you know that the “pressed down, and shaken together, and running over,” “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,” (Luke 6:38/Ephesians 3:20 KJV) goes A LOT further and deeper in heaven than what our human limitations allow us to perceive and/or understand!

Have a great rest of the week, and as you do, say with me… “I am highly expectant of gaining a greater working knowledge of the impossibilities of my God!”



*Don’t let me kid you as it is probably not as early as you are imagining.  We would usually go out for our first walk of the day around 11:00 in the morning, but recently it has been more like 9:30ish.  With people staying home, there are more out walking as the morning wears on!