There Is Joy in the Rain

The wind was cold and my hair haphazardly blew across my face. I breathed in and exhaled quickly. I had decided to walk and clear my head; figuring the cold air would be just what I needed. A vulture overhead was catching thermals and flying in circles through the white cloudy sky. It seemed even he knew the snow was coming and was using these last few moments to play outside, like I was.

I heard these words come through my ear piece,

"I am the Lord your God, I go before you now
I stand beside you, I'm all around you
Though you feel I'm far away, I'm closer than your breath
I am with you, more than you know."

 

The words were comforting and made me think about what MY heaven will be like. I say, MY heaven because I really do believe heaven will be what you want it to be. Your heaven may be on streets of gold and through pearly gates but my heaven will be in a tranquil field surrounded by beautiful trees on all sides.

A few years ago, I had a comforting dream that I was in heaven but heaven didn't look like what other people had taught me.

"Is this really heaven?" I thought. I was on the tallest mountain surrounded by lush green forests and soft grass. No one was around. It was just me and the Lord. And I remember feeling peace because that's exactly how I wanted it to be.

You may wonder why I'm talking about heaven. To some, it might be a little creepy to talk about the afterlife. And yes, even for me its hard to type my thoughts out. But I think we need to remember that this life we are living now is only temporary. There are a lot of good moments we experience here on earth but there are also a lot of hard moments. The good moments are to remind us that heaven will be full of JOY and the hard moments are to remind us that we are mortal and can only survive if we fully rely on God.

We all have hard moments in our life that we can remember. Sometimes, they seem to RAIN down on us with absolutely no break in between. For some, it might be the death of a loved one, for others it might be the experience of a traumatic event and even for others maybe a loss of control in every aspect of our life. Whatever your hard moment was, I think it's important to know that the ache will always be there. The panic will creep up on you years later and you will wonder why you're still not "over" it. It's in moments like these, that we must fully rely on God. We must not doubt that our Lord is with us but that HE has his fatherly hand on our shoulder the whole way through...even till the end.

My hard moment...not nearly as tough as other's moments...but waking up from surgery and being told I had cancer. With no one there to share my sadness, I cried alone as the thought of dieing swept over my whole being.

My good moment...getting the phone call that I was misdiagnosed. And after celebrating this good news, vowing to make something positive happen from such a terrible experience.

The song, Holding On, by Jamie Grace began playing as I finished up my walk and suddenly cold rain drops began falling on my face. The vulture was still flying in circles over my head and I thanked God for reminding me that there is still JOY in the RAIN.

All the signs of life
They’re all around me with every heartbeat
I feel so alive,
I am joy and sadness,
Peace and madness
If only I can fight just a little longer
I know It’s gonna make me stronger

 I just keep holding on to what I believe
Oh, I believe in you
Give me the strength to fight
And the heart to believe
When it’s hard to believe in you.