When I think about heaven.

I’ve been thinking a lot about heaven lately.

Not in a morbid way or anything, I don’t think. In the way that I think it’s good to be prepared and I like to daydream kind of way, I guess.

I’m excited about the whole thing. Really I am. I think Jesus is going to be real cool. He came up with that whole salvation thing. And the angels are sure going to sound sweet. And God, well, am just so thrilled to experience that kind of love in person. Not in person, but in spirit? Not sure what the appropriate expression is there.

I sit here thinking about heaven at 4 a.m. A train is rolling by my window. It’s about a mile away but the window still shakes, I believe a product of it being the middle of the night and there not being much else around to compete in the way of making noise. I don’t always notice the train, but I try to — trains are one of my favorite joys in life. They make me think of my Pappaw. He collected ’em and so I always think they’re his way saying hello — so this train at 4 a.m. while I’m thinking about heaven sounds real nice.

I hope I get to remember people in heaven. I know I’ll probably be preoccupied, what with the angels singin’ and Jesus being cooler than cool and God being the actual definition of love and such. But I hope I get to see Pappaw and Granny again. I sure miss them, and a heaven where I never see their faces again or get one of those big hugs makes me want to cry. I suppose the idea of it actually is making me cry.

I wonder what heaven feels like? In mine I really do get to sleep on clouds and float through the stars. Do we each get our own heaven? I know, heaven is more than my little human brain can handle. It really is — eternity is bigger that I can comprehend most days and spends a lot of time scaring me, really. But this little human brain of mine has always wanted to see a star up close and sit on a cloud and maybe hear angels sing gospel hymns and I have a hard time believing God would let me have that daydream is I wasn’t ever going to get to experience all those things.

I think about heaven in the way I know it’s coming. It’s something I’m excited about, most assuredly, but I get kind of sad when I see or hear people skipping out on their human lives while they think about heaven all the time.

I’m sure excited, too, but this little life and body I’ve been given sure is great, and I’d hate to miss out on it because I was too busy getting ahead of myself. I’m real good at that most of the time, but I try to watch out for it.

Because this little life of mine – as cliche as it sounds – sure is a lovely little gift, and gifts should be appreciated.

So I’m going to do my best to appreciate this lucky little hand I have. I suppose I feel like that’s the point of this whole thing — to feel loved and share as much as I can and say thanks when I remember, while knowing that’s never enough, but that’s okay anyway.

And I’ll keep thinking about heaven. But not too much.