Glimpses of Heaven - pt 2

If you know me personally or have been reading this blog for very long, then you know that I like to research things!  If I learned anything (and I actually learned quite a few things about human behaviors) in my college studies in Psychology, it was how to write, dissect and review a well written research paper or thesis.  After I left my outside job to take care of Piper full-time, I dove into the research of Alzheimer’s.   I quickly discovered that there is a vast multitude of information out there concerning the disease that one has to wade through to get to the truth, as much of it has no real bona fide research or proper study data to back the writer’s claims.  This was especially prevalent with homeopathic or natural remedies that claimed the complete miraculous reversal of symptoms.

You wouldn’t believe some of the things people suggested to me in the early stages of Piper’s fight.  Some of these folks even got verbally angry with me or toward my kids because I refused to follow their advice… and believe me… I did check them all out and had some deep discussions with Piper’s brain specialist in San Francisco.  One time she actually burst out laughing when I told her of a particular remedy that was being strongly suggested by one individual.

So, with my love for research and Piper’s departure through the veil into heaven’s realm, it was only logical that I study and find out as much as I could about her new digs!  As I mentioned in my last post, I have always taken personal reports that I have heard or read about heaven with a grain of salt.  But what I am beginning to find out, now as I have been spending more time researching the subject, is that many of their unrelated experiences entail descriptions that tend to match or line up with each other!  Things such as fragrances, the brightness of the colors, the way the inhabitants of heaven looked, how they communicated, how they just seemed to know or understand things and mostly, with their ecstatic joy and peacefulness.

I am only about halfway through the current book I’m reading but I find that I can hardly go a paragraph or two before needing to grab a tissue, wait until my emotions settle and then utter an awestruck “WOW that’s how that will happen!”  I have had so many questions about how my life is supposed to go on with her in heaven.  I've found myself pondering with some real concerns that if I do certain things down here… things that are Biblically okay… what happens with Piper when I get to heaven.  And I am constantly thinking about what she is doing, thinking and seeing up there… and with all the glory and greatness of God where she is… if she ever even thinks about me anymore!  This latest book has been helping me to find many mind-boggling answers to some of my deepest questions and concerns.*

When I was reading Ephesians 3:17-20 during my early morning escapade, sitting on the edge of my bed with my flashlight and Bible at 5:30 AM yesterday, I came to the place where the Apostle Paul is attempting to describe the power of God saying, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…” (Ephesians 3:20 KJV) and it suddenly dawned on me why he had a tendency in his writings to use a multiplicity of different descriptive words to try and best explain the over-whelming audacity and largeness of God in the points he was attempting to convey to his readers.  It was because he had been to heaven and had seen and experienced how God operates when free from the constraints of the natural world that you and I live in!

Most scholars understand Paul’s discussion in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 of visions and revelations and the man he knew who had been caught up to paradise, to be talking about his own personal experience. So, it would make sense then, that he would find himself at a loss for just the right words to explain what he saw that was way beyond what we can understand with our human limitations.  Vincent’s Word Studies states that Paul’s use of the words “exceeding abundantly above all” in Ephesians 3:20, are “one of the numerous compounds of the Greek word ‘huper’ of which Paul is fond.  Of twenty-eight words compounded with this preposition in the New Testament, Paul alone uses twenty.”

What Paul must have seen was unexplainable in mere human terms… which is exactly what I am beginning to realize as I read of many different accounts of people’s encounters with the heavenly realm.  That’s why things are so much better, why His love abounds so much more, why there is an over-abundance of His peace, joy, and happiness… and why things that seem unexplainable or impossible are explained and very possible to Him and to us… when we get to heaven!

All I can continue to say is “WOW!”  All I can continue to do is to trust Him even more for the things that seem impossible in my life.  All I can do is to continue to know that “by constantly using my faith, that the life of Christ will continue to be released deep inside of me, and that the resting place of his love will continue to be the very source and root of my life.” (Ephesians 3:17 – The Passion Translation/personalized)

How about You?  Have a blessed Easter and let the resting place of His love in you, splash on to those around you.  (from 6' away... of course!)



*“Appointments with Heaven.” The true story of a country doctor’s healing encounters with the hereafter.” By Dr. Reggie Anderson.  Tyndale Momentum, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.