Looking Forward to Heaven

Well, the lidcaine treatment didn't work!  The first treatment resulted in no change whatsoever, and the second one put me in the emergency room!  The lidocaine is given intravenously over a period of one hour in the doctor's office. You are hooked up to a heart monitor because it also is used as a heart medication to treat arrhythmias.  They have to be aware of any cardiac changes.  The first time, all the medication did was make me sleepy.  The second time, I very quickly started to feel drowsy and dizzy. Then I felt pain in my chest, and my left arm and neck.  At first I ignored it because I am used to feeling random pains everywhere.  But then it increased in intensity and my heart raced.  I told them to stop the infusion.  They sent me to the ER, where I spent the afternoon.  Tests revealed no heart attack.  It remains a mystery as to why I felt those symptoms.  I'm just happy that I had my husband with me at the doctor's.  I needed to have him close by.

So it appears that no pain relief will be coming just yet.  I am disappointed of course, but not devastated.  I just wanted so much to look forward to enjoying my daughter's wedding in May.  I actually am very worried that I won't be able to make it through the day.  I get very ill just going to someone else's wedding, and that's just going to the reception. How will I get through the preparations, picture taking, ceremony, guest greeting, reception, etc. when my limit for being out of bed is only one to two hours?  It's just too physically demanding.  I have to let go and trust.

All of this makes me think a lot about heaven.  It may be that my healing will not occur until then.  Heaven is becoming more real to me.  Previously, I couldn't really get a grasp on it's reality.  It was more of an idea than fact.  My brain just could not grasp it.  I know from Scripture that there will be no pain or sorrow.  We will experience God personally and be in His presence.  There will be joy beyond comprehension.  I am understanding now how the things I find a little joy in right now are just little glimspses of what Eternity will be like. I find joy in God's beautiful creation in nature.  That is just a tiny indication of the beauty I will experience in Heaven that will take my breath away.  I find joy when people love me, and I can love back.  In heaven that joy will be multiplied without end when I am in the presence of Love Himself.  We are created to treasure relationships in anticipation for the ultimate relationship with our Lord.  I crave peace, happiness, freedom, pain relief, a sense of transcendance from the difficulties of earth. These are desires the Lord has given me to remind me that this is not my home.  He has created us for life with Him, and that is what our souls long for.  It is a reminder that we are here only as sojourners.  Our real life is yet to come.  In the meantime He continues to give me glimspses of Heaven as encouragement that He has a beautiful plan for my eternal life.