Up where the Son always shines

Hey, everyone!

Wow! It's gonna be an awesomely bright and sunny one today! Skies of bluest blue made bluer still by golden beams of the sunniest sun!

"Really!? I just heard we can "expect considerable cloudiness and a 70% chance of rain all day and into your Saturday with a 50% chance into tomorrow afternoon…"

Oh…well, that's true for the just the very first of the sky. 

The slice nearest to us. 

Under the clouds, it is going to be pretty wet and sloshy for the next couple of days. But in most of the sky, it's gonna be clear as clear can be! 

I was reading about a fella in the 40's wrote  "The Weather Book". He explained that the sky (everything "up" until you get to outer space) is about 250 miles high. But the slice of sky where the weather happens and where the clouds "live"…we call this the "troposphere" (well, actually I've never called it that!)…is only about 18,000 feet high. So…

It'll be bright and crisp and clear in almost all the sky today! And every day! 

It'll only be cloudy and rainy in the lowest levels right above our heads, meteorologically speaking. 

So the forecast for today and for everyday till Jesus comes is "…mostly sunny and clear! (with some variations in the lowest levels where clouds may or may not be, depending)"

Which reminds me…

Tomorrow, I'll be at two funerals.

During the funerals, there will be singing, shouting, dancing, eating, praising, and endless joy joy joy!

"Wow! I can't remember ever being at a funeral like that!"

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean "at" the funeral. I mean "during" the funeral. 

At the funeral, there will be hugs, smiles, tears, encouragement, remembering, soft quiet singing and prayers. Mostly they are like this. Down where we are.

But up above, where those who are loved and gone will be during the funerals…Up beyond the troposphere and the sky…

There will be singing and praising and joy like we have never yet known! All the time! 

It is always and neverendingly thus! 

Both now and forevermore! 

Worlds without end! 

Amen!

And all of us who love them and who love Jesus as well, will be joining them soon! And if it happens to me before He comes to gather us, while y'all are down here "below the clouds" at my funeral, with your hugs and smiles, I'll be dancing and praising like Gene Kelly and Mahalia Jackson and I-don't-know-who, all rolled into one! 

Praising my Savior and loving my new life!!

Up where the Son always shines!

Y'know, one time, the Apostle Paul wrote that he had the very unusual experience of getting to visit Heaven for a moment before his "time". He said there are not words in any language to describe the wonders above that he saw and the wonders above that he heard! He spoke of "inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell!" (2 Coringthians 12.4)

As the song says, "...Just too marvelous! Too marvelous for words!"

Some scholars believe that this may have happened when Paul was taken outside the city walls of Lystra and stoned to "death" by some folks who were more upset at him than humans should ever be at anyone. 

"They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city…" (Acts 14.19-20)

A pile of stones.

A circle of weeping, hugging friends.

Quiet words.

Tearful prayers. 

A stone moves!

And than another!

A hush!

Our dusty hero standing tall!

"Really!? You've been with Him?! What was it like?"

"You have no idea!! I can't even talk about it!"

Hallelujah!