Minutes in heaven.

As most of you know if you have been following this blog, I've made many deposits in heaven in the last 20+ years. It started with my father-in-law in 1988,Mom in 1996, Phyllis in 2002, Daddy in 2003, Linda in 2005, and Jason in 2008. I didn't even include in that list Tony's two grandmothers, my grandparents, and various aunts and uncles in both Rider and Humphrey families who have passed away during that time. Therefore, I read everything I can read about heaven. I want to know where these loved ones are, what they are doing, what the place looks like, everything. Recently I read the book Heaven is for Real which started me thinking of Jason and the interraction he is experiencing with all those who went before him. I've always liked the idea that Jason is with my parents and his granddad, my sisters, and his grandmothers that he knew well. What the book did for me was to make me realize how far back the generations go, and to think of him with young and able-bodied great great grandparents is so much fun.
The little boy in the book visits heaven and gets to spend time with a grandfather that died before the boy was born. When he is back here, he is able to point out "Pop" from a picture of when Pop was a young man. When his dad showed him a picture of Pop as an old man, the boy says, "Dad, people don't wear glasses in heaven." There are no old people in heaven. I love, love, love this idea.
My mom's brothers and sisters were a group of the most loving, fun, happy Christian people I've ever known, but most of them suffered from physical ailments here on this earth. I can only imagine the laughter these people share in heaven when they don't have any pain or illness. After the stories they told about picking cotton, I wanted to pick cotton. They made it sound fun, but I've seen those movies; I've read the books. There was nothing fun about the experience unless you had my Uncle Earl to make it fun. I wonder if they are getting to pick cotton, but it is not hot, the cotton is not heavy, their hands aren't being destroyed.
I was reading the end of another book this week about how we would live if we only had thirty days to live. It sounds morbid, but it really isn't. It just makes us realize that we spend time like we have all the time in the world, but if we knew how long we had, we would be more intentional in the way we waste our resources. The end of that book has a story of a woman who has been told that she is dying. Her husband has their minister come to pray with her, and she teaches him a lesson that he passed on. The Bible says that With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day. The woman reminds the minister of this truth and then says. I've done the math. If my husband lives here for forty years after I'm gone, it will only be about an hour in heaven, so I'll just have to wait an hour.
My heart soared at this news. Jason has spent minutes in heaven. Our grief has gone on for two years and six months, but he hasn't even been there long enough to see the place and all the people who went there before him. If we use her math, my mom was only there about twenty minutes before Jason joined her. That explains so much to me. I always think of the people in heaven waiting for us to join them like we wait for a baby to be born. Expectantly. Hopefully. Joyfully. Their time is so much different from ours. One thing that has bothered me is thinking of Jason being cheated out of a long life because he love life. For some reason I'm not bothered about that now.