April 10 2002 - April 10 2022  20 years since he moved!

The night my father died was a long night.  When we got home from the hospital it was after midnight.  I was completely worn out.  I was in shock because dad had died, I was mentally tired thinking of my mom without my dad, and I was physically tired because it was so late. 

I climbed into bed thinking I would go to sleep immediately like I always do.  Instead, I laid in bed thinking of my mom and dad.  I turned the TV on and watched a couple of episodes of the Andy Griffith show.  Finally, I began to relax a little and turned the TV off to try to sleep.

During my life God has seen fit to comfort me many times.  Sometimes He comforts me mentally thru difficult times and sometimes physically with good rest.  It was this night God gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life.  I drifted off to sleep knowing our lives had just changed and a person who had meant so very much to me would no longer be in my life. 

Suddenly I was looking down on a huge coliseum.  When I say huge, I mean massive!  The coliseum was packed full of people.  The people were dressed in very different styles of clothing ranging from very casual modern-day clothes to familiar looking robes from Bible stories. Far to one end of the coliseum there seems to be a bit of movement.  It is on the floor of the coliseum.  After a few seconds I can see someone has entered the arena and is moving toward the middle.  The people in the stands begin to cheer, first softly, then it grows and grows.  Now a familiar stomping of the stands by thousands of feet begins to grow.  I notice there are beings (I suppose angels) in the sky around the edges of the coliseum.  They seem to be excited and happy.  As the sounds continue to get louder and louder the person who had entered now is nearly to the middle of the arena.

I notice many people in the crowd are making their way to the person who has entered.  They reach out and touch the person.  They hug the person as they greet one another.  The sounds now are almost deafening.  I know any minute I’m going to see who has entered and then I see his face.  It is my father.  He is now fully engulfed by people greeting him.  I assume the ones greeting him were people he had known in life.  My dad looks so peaceful and happy.  I don’t recognize anyone else.  As the crowd gathers around dad he disappears into the group and I lose sight of him.  The noise dies down and things become almost silent again.

As I watch I can see the main group where my dad was gathering together  kind of move off to the opposite end of the arena.  At this point, after a few moments of quiet, the clapping and the cheering begins again.  At first, very quietly, then it begins to grow again.  I notice where my dad had entered there is a commotion again.  Someone new has entered.  Someone new is being greeted.  Someone new is being welcomed and loved.

By seeing this I had been comforted beyond belief.  In my heart I believe it was God’s way of letting me see beyond this world for just a moment.  He let me see a story I could understand of people entering heaven.  He had let me see and feel peace.  

            God has gifted me twice in my life by allowing me to “see” something.  He has shown me things in a way I can understand, I don’t take it lightly.  I know both times it was a huge gift.  I rarely share either time but today, April 10, 2022, is twenty years to the day that my dad went to heaven.  I felt it was time to share it.