A Place of My Own - Heaven

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places.If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.

Today I want to muse about heaven. Heaven is the place all of us Christians want to be once our life is changed and we close our eyes in death.  Some people have been heard to say that they don't want to go to heaven because none of their friends will be there.  Well, I would make better friends then!  

Of late there have been a few books written by people who have supposedly gone to heaven and have returned. I read one of them that relates the story of a little boy's visit to heaven and to Jesus.  I found the story very interesting. The book's title is "Heaven is for Real."  Colton is a child who got very, very sick indeed from a burst appendix and apparently died and went to heaven and visited with Jesus. While he was there he visited with his grandfather whom he never knew, learned that he had a sister that had been stillborn.  He relayed these facts to his parents when he was "sent back."  There was no way he could have known about the stillborn sister and he did not recognize the grandfather's picture until one was shown to him that showed his grandfather as younger.  The boy said that no one is old in heaven.  He also related what his father and mother were doing while he was in the operating room being worked on by the surgeons.  They also kept showing pictures of Jesus and he rejected all of them until he was shown one drawn by an artist who had a near death experience and visited heaven.  They showed Colton the painting Prince of Peace by Akiane Kamarik and he said nothing. His father pressed him for his comments and the boy said that this painting looked just like Jesus. 

Here is the painting - Is This Jesus?

Prince of Peace by
Akiane Kamarik 

That is a synopsis of Colton's story.  Is it true?  It most certainly could be true. What heaven will be like cannot be described in human terms.  Through my personal experience, I can tell you that heaven will be a place of great joy, I know this as fact, not as something I take on faith.  The details are for another post.  

My hopes for heaven are simple, like the old song.  Heaven will be a place where no one ever goes hungry or cold, nor will they grow old and die.  I believe that we will know absolutely everyone in heaven and will talk to them as we speak to our best friends and spouses here on earth. I believe that our minds will understand all of the mysteries of the universe.  There will be no hate or prejudice and we will all have a great love for one another. 

I've never owned a place of my own on this earth and there was a time in my life that I mourned over this fact.  But, today, I realize that no matter what we own here on earth, we can take none of it with us except that which we carry in our heart.  My place in heaven will rival and surpass the palaces in this world because it will be with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Saints.  Maybe, I can be on a first name basis with St. Francis of Assisi, and speak with St. Michael the Archangel about how he defeated the devil.  A tent on the edge of heaven will be infinitely better than a mansion on earth. 

So, that's what I have to say about heaven.  What are your thoughts? Feel free to share a comment below.