Thursday, September 21, 2006

Heaven

Hello All. Recently my good friend Jenn, showed me a blog of one of her friends daughters patient, (did you catch that!). Anyway, her patient is this cute little boy with a disease called Trisomy 18 also known as Edwards downsyndrome. Most babies don't make it to birth, the ones that do usually pass away a few days later and a small percentage live to their first birthday. This amazing christian family had their baby boy, Elliot July 20th. They just celebrated his 2 month birthday. And it is definitly a real celebration. He is on feeding tubes and has a hole in his heart and needs 24 hour nursing. But he is really cute and so far has a lot of spunk for someone so sick. Every little thing he does is so important to this family and as I was reading their blog today, below is what the dad had to say about how his son has taught him to long for heaven. It is very touching and I hope it stirs your desire to be in heaven with God. Not sometime in the future, but longing for it NOW! I've always personally struggled with wanting heaven. I keep saying after I get married, after kids, after I raise them, after after after. But that isn't what we are supposed to feel like. Anyway, enough from me. I hope you get as much out of this as I did!


Eliot continues to teach, and we continue in our pursuit to pass on the lessons learned. I must admit that, until recently, I have never longed for heaven. Don’t get me wrong, it has always been somewhere I eventually wanted to be; it sounded great and all, but, honestly, I enjoy the here and now just fine. I looked at heaven as through a telescope. It was a nice place, not too distant, the surface of which reminded me of my current surroundings.Scripture describes the feelings that we as believers should have for the afterlife with these words: longing, burdened, & groaning. Whatever my affections for heaven were, these words would not be an apt description for them.Enter Eliot…he is my reminder, my illumination. This world is out of kilter. Not quite right. Eliot’s head bobs with each breath. His heart has a hole in it. The list continues from there. For the first time, I long for heaven. I want to be there. I want it worse than any desire that I have ever experienced. This world will no longer suffice. I am restless for that which lies beyond. Eliot has revealed the distance from earth to the afterward. He has taken my telescope and fashioned a magnifying glass- and the true distance from here to home has been exposed.so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life…We…would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. II Corinthians 5 Matt & Ginny Mooney

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, my! That is an amazing story! Makes us think, doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

I've tried enter a comment a time or two, but each time it pales in comparison to the impact of just reading the blog by Elliot's daddy. Kind of makes our "worries" pretty small and makes you think about how precious heaven and eternity with our Savior will be. I am just so thankful that my family is there and/or will be there someday.

Anonymous said...

Just tagging on Steve and Jenni's comment! Yeah, everyone...you guys all better show up in heaven or I'm gonna be really ticked! LOL
Seriously, why in the world would we not want to be in heaven? This world is getting worse and worse (our grandkids ONLY hope is Jesus) and heaven starts looking better all the time I think!