HEAVEN IS OUR TRUE HOME AND IT IS OUT THERE BEYOND THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM

It is an uplifting week and a week during which our eyes should lift up toward Heaven.

What's it like?

All in Heaven edifies. All in Heaven gives health. Trees are august and towering and yet bear total symmetry – none growing beyond its place in a mosaic that could only be orchestrated by God.

It is a place of reception and also a place that ministers to those who are resting (taking a break from the tasks of God). Those who traverse do so with no rush because they have all the time of eternity, which of course means that there is no time at all – just the present. Past and future have found their way into one inconceivable package.

"In the distance by the river there were six or seven people standing by some trees, and I could tell that they were waiting for me," said a woman named Elaine who had a near-death experience. "It was as if they knew I was coming. One of them looked up and said, 'There she is!' A man leaning against a tree motioned with his arm.

"All of them were dressed in white, a white which radiated light. Their hands and faces were not the same as on earth, but I recognized them quickly. They were about thirty years of age in appearance, much younger than when I had seen them last."

A crippled aunt was no longer crippled.

Green radiates.

All communicates. All provides information.

Humility sends us in the proper direction.

Pride of intellect blinds us to God around us.

"Oh, my goodness, I should have known!" you will say when you see what your earthly mission had been. "Of course. Oh, that’s why such and such occurred. Oh, I see why that was arranged. Oh, my, I understand why those who were involved were involved – I see why I met everyone!"

This will unfold in a surrounding that is sheer delight.

As the mysteries of your life unfold, you may see the "wall" of eternity scroll down or view earth through the walls of the reception area. All will be brought before you in an instant. You will delight in what you overcame!

Kindness brings joy and somewhere in your mysterious mission is the task to love despite the circumstances (and the arrogance of this world).

Every hardship will be "gold" and you will see it.

Just think of what it would be like to realize that one important mission was simply to smile at someone each day!

A smile on earth, a "Merry Christmas" (with feeling), reflects the sunshine of  Heaven.

At Christmas, in prayer, Heaven touches earth.

"The weather was absolutely perfect in terms of temperature and humidity," said a blind man who saw the surroundings when he too neared actual death. "It was so fresh, so unbelievably fresh that mountain air on earth could not even come close. It was absolutely refreshing, wonderfully refreshing."

"It seemed to be all-encompassing," said another blind man named Brad in a book about blind near-death cases penned by a doctor named Kenneth Ring. "It seemed like everything, even the grass I had been stepping on, seemed to soak in that light. It seemed like the light could actually penetrate through everything that was there, even the leaves on the trees. There was no shade; there was no need for shade."

False humility will not get you here.

The light shimmers; it causes warmth (as if you are inside of it).

There are jasper and gem stones – the blind have described such also, just like anyone else who goes through the experience.

Yet they are not gems – not like stones of the earth.

Everything will be imbued with the Light of God and will emanate it – everything, that is, beyond purgatory. On earth, objects depend on radiation from the sun, or artificial light, reflecting it. The way they refract or absorb the sun determines their color. On earth, there are primary colors (red, green, and blue; all other colors come from a mixture or concentration of those, or an absence). In Heaven, there are dozens – hundreds – and they are perceived in different ways according to the level.

In Heaven, everything seems luminous because everything yields the power of God from within instead of a reflection from without. We are more connected. Our thoughts are our communication and transportation. Often, those who die and return say they were taken through realms by Jesus and that as quick as they thought of where they wanted to head, they were there – to different levels and sometimes with a scenery that would put one in mind of traveling through the universe.

There are stars. There are galaxies. There are planets. Are they really stars?

Many who die describe a flight in what seemed like space, leaving earth and moving at a super speed. "Instead of a tunnel, some people report rising suddenly into the heavens and seeing the earth and the celestial sphere as they would be seen by astronauts in space," wrote the foremost researcher in this field, Dr. Raymond Moody.

When we die, we are free from the boundaries of this world and new worlds open for us. Endless worlds. Endless universes." Some of those who have died and returned even use the term "eternities."

There may be a wall. There may be a bridge. We will meet ancestors. We will map our genealogies. Families bear purpose and you will learn that purpose. When a West Coast woman named Kimberly Clark Sharp died, the way she described the feeling of eternity was with words she used as a child: "homey home." It is more than home. It is our origin. Our spirits were created here. They were infused into our bodies when the Lord knitted us in the womb. Before we existed, He knew us, says the Bible. Gabrielle Keller said "it was everything you could wish for if you were trying to imagine Heaven. The feeling of wonder and peace that I had was something I have never experienced before or since. A group of people met me, walking up to me with their arms outstretched. I had never seen any of them before, but somehow they were familiar."

Not forgiving will stifle you.

It is a lesson of the Crucifixion: to forgive no matter what, to release to the Father, and endure pain without purveying it. Christ gave us the keys to eternity on Calvary. We can rise like Him – not resurrect, bodily (that was for the Son of God), but to rise above the antagonisms, the hurts, the pain of this passing world.

How quickly it passes! We are here for but an average of 29,000 days or 42 million minutes. The clock ticks. We are "homeward bound." And this is what we must bind ourselves to: our true home, beyond the star that shone that night to shepherds who followed not their heads but their hearts.

[see also: This Christmas, get rid of deadly pride]

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