Links to Heaven!

 He will wipe away every tear, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying,  nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

 Revelations 21:4

  My son, Mark, passed away. 

When events shake your life and perhaps even your faith, you become sensitive to various inputs, as you search for answers. These random inputs are absorbed, compartmentalized and stored in your mind for future reference, as you read, listen, pray and read the Bible, searching for understanding.  Suddenly, these random and independent thoughts come together and are linked.  A new understanding emerges that clarifies and answers the questions you have been seeking.

Is there a Heaven? If so, what does it look like? Is it truly a “better place”?

My brother, Jim, called me to tell me about a dream he had the night before.  He said that we three brothers were at a huge green and lush field, like a park or huge picnic area. We were breaking up to go our separate ways, when he called us back to tell us that for sure the Arnold boys needed to get together again. As I turned to walk away, Jim said Mark was standing there waiting for me.  He looked just like he did on Celebrity Apprentice. He went up and gave him a hug. Mark said he was doing okay.  And then Jim suddenly woke up.  He cried as he told the story. I cried when I heard the story.

In my search for answers I read two books about near death experiences. What gives near death stories validity is that they are remarkably similar. There is a consistency in one to the other.  As they describe heaven, they all say whatever they are describing doesn’t come close to what they saw and felt.

In the book entitled Proof of Heaven by Neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, he describes what he saw in his near death story.

“The moment I understood this, I began to move up.  Fast. There was a whooshing sound, and a flash I went through and opening and found myself in a completely new world. The strangest, most beautiful world I’d ever seen.

Brilliant, vibrant, ecstatic, stunning… I could heap on one adjective after another to describe what this world looked like and felt like, but they’d fall short.  I felt like I was being born. Not reborn, or born again.  Just … born.

Below me was countryside.  It was green, lush and earthlike. It was earth  . . . but it at the same time it wasn’t. It was like when your parents take you back to a place where you spent some years as a very young child.  You don’t know the place.  Or at least you think you don’t.  But as you look around, something pulls at you, and you realize that part of yourself, a part way deep down, does remember-- and is rejoicing at being back there again.”

“. . . Multiply that feeling a thousand times, and you still won’t be anywhere close to what it felt like where I was.”

In To Heaven and Back, by Mary C. Neal M.D. she says,

“Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and what I felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I’m trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions, and concepts don’t even exist in our current language. “

All agree heaven is indescribable in human terms.  It is a special state of perfect happiness and calming peace; free of pain, worry, the external world and our internal selves. We are all looking for this Nirvana, but there is no perfect Nirvana on Earth, it only exists in heaven. What we can do here on earth is look for those little everyday Nirvanas.

These near death experiences are supported in what the Bible describes about the wonders of the eternal after life in a heaven.

I have wondered when God created the Garden of Eden if his original idea might have been to create a heaven on earth.  The Garden is described as being lush and green, bountiful with fruits and every species of bird, animal and bug available. It was without sin.  By eating the forbidden fruit, sin came upon the earth.  It was not a heaven. It was and is  filled with non-heavenly things. It was God's test and we failed.

The final piece of input came from the Bible.  One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Psalms 23.  I read it quite often because it gives me peace.  As I was reading it, I was drawn to the second verse;

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters.”

I believe David is writing a description of heaven.

             

My search for answers goes on, but I know there is a heaven, and it is indescribably beautiful and it truly is a better place.

Rest in peace my son; I’ll be there.