Tag: life after death

Living Forever

On By SandraIn death, faithLeave a comment

There is a county music song that says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go today”.  This is an interesting concept I never really thought about until my husband died.

Since then, I look forward to be able to make that journey.  I am not looking forward to streets of gold or the glitter and glamour.  I just want to experience the peace, the love and the eternal contentment.

Admittedly, I miss my husband so much that I can hardly wait to see him again.

I recently heard another song played on K-Love, the radio station that I listen to in the car.  Part of the lyrics to this song was “In death I gain”.  As I reflected on these lyrics I realized that most people do not view death as a gain.  We all say that we wish for eternal life and the hereafter with God. But we fight like hell to stay here on earth.

It doesn’t really make any sense.
I am not saying that we should stop going to the doctors.
Or stop taking our medicines.
Or throw our healthy life styles in the trash.

I believe our bodies are temples of God.  I think we should be reverent toward them.  I think we should pay attention and treat them well so that they can be a service to God.

I think about how God created us to be his servants and to be examples for others to follow.  I know how important it is to be healthy so we can work for our Lord.

I also believe, however, that there comes a time when we should look forward to dying. When we should understand the only way to experience our eternal life is to transfer over, out of these physical bodies, into our spiritual bodies.

We are somehow schizophrenic when we say we are excited about going to heaven, but we fight like crazy to stay on earth.

I think we are just afraid.

It is the unknown that gives us the most fear.  It is like that with everything. Any big decision makes us afraid because we don’t know how things will work out.  We can’t see the future so we are afraid.  We know the reality of the present, but the future is the unknown.

It is hard to trust what we cannot see and we cannot know.  But God is with us everyday. He has given us so many signs that he will care for us.  He guides me daily  to do things that are good for me; that I would not even have thought about had He not put it in my mind. With this evidence, I am comfortable about death and passing on to the spiritual side of life.

I think about how suddenly my husband died.  It does not matter if you are ready and are prepared.  When God calls your name, you go.  It does not matter if you are in good health or in poor health.  When God calls your name, you go.

I have decided that I am not going to hasten my transition to the spiritual side but I am certainly looking forward to it.  I know that I will leave behind lots of lose ends and things that my children will have to handle  But when my name is called, I am ready.

Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

 

Talking to the Moon

On By SandraIn family, loss, loveLeave a comment

I am working long hours trying to get houses ready for the beach rental season.  So, after a particularly hard day the day before, I slept til 7 am one morning.  (Normally I am up by 6 am.)  Suddenly I hear my Echo Dot playing a song.  I did not ask it to play a song. I am in the house by myself so I know that no one else asked it to play a song.

I am stunned and bewildered.

I listen to the song.
It was “Talking to the Moon” by Bruno Mars.

I listen to the lyrics.  “I am talking to the moon because you are not here and I want you bad.  You are all I had and I sit by myself and talk to the moon trying to get to you and hope that you are on the other side talking to me too.  Do you hear me calling because every night I am talking.”

I immediately remember all of the years spent traveling with my job. Every night my husband and I would talk to each other.  Many, many nights we would do this while we were looking at the moon.  We knew it was our connection.  Both of us were looking at the same thing in spite of the fact that we were thousands of miles apart.

As I was enjoying this memory I was trying in the back of my mind to figure out how my departed husband could get “Alexa” to play on my Dot.

I knew God could do this.  
God can, in my belief, do anything.  

But I did not think God would really turn “Alexa” on.  And It was kind of spooky to think that my husband could do this.  But I have seen him dance in the body of a squirrel so maybe this was just another message from the other side.

Oh, yeah.  This is getting weird.
I mean I have a lot of faith.

I am so intimate with God that I would not hesitate to believe it could have been another “God Wink”.  But somehow my logical and rational brain would not let it be that way.  I had to figure it out.

The night before I had noticed the amazing moon.  It was almost full.  The sky was clear and the moon was so big you felt you could reach up and touch it.  It was glorious.  I had texted two of my daughters to ask them if they had noticed the moon.  I wanted to share the beauty of the huge globe in the sky.  They had both noticed this magnificent sky gem.

Then, my logical and rational mind kicked in.  I called my daughter and asked, “Can you control my “Alexa” from 200 miles away?  She said she could.  She said, “How did you enjoy ‘Talking to the Moon’ ?  I admitted it was beautiful and it was sweet of her to remember me in this way.

I did not let her know that I thought my dead husband had sent it to me as a love message.  I really do not want to give my children any more reason to file for guardianship papers.  But just between you and me, I will tell you a secret.  It was my husband that put in her mind to do this.  He was always such a romantic man.

I bet he and God are having a lot of fun.  They are up there finding lots of ways to keep me on my toes and loving both of them.

Thank you Ray for your love message.
Thank you God for taking care of my sweet husband and making me so comfortable in your love.

You are holding me in your arms and helping me know it is all OK.

 

Be My Valentine

On By SandraIn death, grief, loss, loveLeave a comment

Since I was fourteen years old I have had a boyfriend give me something special for Valentine’s Day.  Even before that we had boxes in our classroom where each student would put a paper valentine in for all other students.  We coded our names by putting numbers for the letters in the alphabet so it was fun to figure out from whom the valentine was sent.  Valentine’s Day has always been a special day for me.

This year I decided to ignore Valentine’s.  I knew that my true love was not going to be here.  I knew that I would not get that special card, those flowers and that extra long hug. I had prepared myself for the fact that my husband had died and Valentine’s Day for me would be just another day on the calendar.

I did great.  I was rocking along getting my chores done and my “to do” list was getting checked off in the speed of lightning. I was proud of my moving along and ignoring the special day of love.

Then my wonderful daughter comes up to me, gives me a great big cuddly long hug and says, “This was sent to you from heaven from Dad”.  That was it.  I looked at her and lost it.  My big bravado heart broke wide open.  I could no longer ignore the day.  I loved him so much while he shared my life and I love him now in all of my many memories; I could not act as if it didn’t matter.

Valentine’s Day is a special day to acknowledge our love for our special people.  I know it is usually marked for the romantic love in our lives.  It is designed for dinners out, flowers, candy in heart shaped boxes and expensive jewelry.

But shouldn’t it be a time that we say “I love you” to all of our special loves?  I, as much as I tried, could not get past the hole in my heart where my true love had lived.  I ached as I let myself release those feelings of emptiness, loneliness and sadness.

I was on the way to church for Ash Wednesday services and the radio seem to play every song that my husband and I had called “our song”.  I cried through everyone.  Then the next song would play and it was, once again, another of the songs that we loved.  Those songs reminded me of many special moments that only the two of us shared.

By the time I got to church I was a basket case. Probably, for the sake of others, I should have turned around and gone home, gone to bed and cried through the night.  But I didn’t.  I sat through a very moving service and thought about repentance and the sacrifice of Jesus and how I was going to ponder that for the next 46 days.

Thankfully my friends are sweet, caring people and they accepted my quiet sobs.  They knew my distress because they knew how much my husband and I were in love.  They understood my pain.

I made it home and the next day I was moving on with life.  But I learned that as hard as I tried to ignore the love that is expressed on Valentine’s Day, it has to be acknowledged. I hope that everyone could have a Valentine in their life as dear and loving as mine was. He was a true romantic. We fell so deeply in love that it is hard to imagine living without him.

So now in my memories, I think of him and want to say, “Please be my Valentine forever”.  I love you and miss you.

I’M NOT CRAZY

On By SandraIn death, griefLeave a comment

I don’t think I am crazy.  After you read several of my thoughts you may think I am crazy. But I think I am still sane.  Shortly after my husband died I would wake up in the night or early morning hours and look out of my window.  Now my bed is facing a bank of six large eight foot windows.

Early in the morning I would see this brightest of stars.  It was there so big and so bright. It was beckoning to me.  “See me” it would say.  Look at me.  I am here just for you to see.

It was mesmerizing.  It was so bright that you could not divert your eyes.  If there were other stars, this star was so much brighter and bolder you did not pay attention to the others.  So I would stare at this star.

Now I am not a student of the stars.  I remember when I was a Girl Scout and my wonderful leader would teach us the constellations.  I just did not get it.  I am fairly visual but I could not see a Lion or a Bear.  So I do not know much about the night sky.  I do not know if this was Venus or Mars or some other planet or star.

But I do know that it was a heavenly body that begged for my attention.  So I started waking every night to see this bright light in the sky.  In my mind, I imagined that this was my dearest friend that no longer shared the bed with me.  This was the spiritual image of my love.  This was the soul of my lost husband.

He called to me each night to notice him.  To share with him.  To talk to him and to feel comforted by his presence.  So I do.  Each night I love to see him and think of the days activities and let him know of my things to do list.  Each night I feel his approval of how I am progressing without his physical body.

Now, you think that is strange.  It gets worse.  I recently went to my mountain house. Way up there in northern North Carolina on a remote ten acres away from everything. At this house my bed is facing two large sliding glass doors that open onto the second floor deck.

At 6 am on the first morning there I wake up and, you guessed it, the star is there.  It was so bright and in your face.  No other star was visible.  Although the sky was dark, this beauty of a light was so bright it was hard to take your eyes off of it.

So we talked.  We laughed.  We enjoyed our presence with each other.

Later on that day, I started to consider the orientation of my bedrooms in each house.  At the lake I face South/Southwest.  In the mountains I face East/ Northeast.  Am I crazy? Are my eyes and mind playing tricks on me?  Do I miss my husband so much I am seeing things and trying to make them into something real?

I don’t know.  I don’t care.  I wake up to see my bright star.  I enjoy sharing and feeling comfort.  I feel an intimate pleasure in his presence.  Crazy or no crazy.  I love it. If it feels this good and helps me get through the days.  I will just be crazy.