(March 9) Getting ready to move on

Many people seem to have directly experienced the reality of the soul as the essential location of the person that Dr. Dyer talks about. For example, CS Lewis declared that during the war a shell landed close to him, seriously wounding him. He said that for a brief time his soul left his body. He declared the event to be real — that he had the undeniable experience of gazing down at himself from a point outside of his body. Too many people have testified about this kind of near-death experience for the reality of this to be easily discounted.

For another thing, the Bible declares that the soul exists outside the body following death. The Apostle Paul inhabited his body as a tent, he said. Someday the tent would be folded up and he would then go to live in an permanent dwelling — a real "house" he called it — in the heavens.

It is both more realistic and simply healthier for me to regard myself as a soul inhabiting a body rather than the other way around. If I view my essential being as a soul that is being sheltered by this aging vehicle in which it only temporarily resides, then I can concentrate my attention upon heavenly, eternal matters. I can give myself for other people. I can live a life marked by secure, realistic hope.

My Grandma Fowler, a woman full of vinegar and true piety, survived for seven years longer than she ever would have lived had she been given the choice. During her final months her mind withdrew to a place of perfect confusion and forgetfulness.

I stood by Grandma's side, one day, staring into the unseeing eyes of this beloved and tragically diminished human being. Suddenly I was moved by a profound sense that my wonderful grandmother was still alive, youthful, and whole — lurking somewhere inside the shattered wreak of her body. The mechanism with which she interfaced with the world around her was broken; but she herself was fine. I recognized, I think, that the essential Grace Fowler was a bird ready to spring way from her decaying cage and to be free.

And that's just what she finally did. The hope of the resurrection that she had carried with her through all her life was finally rewarded, just as the Bible says, so that "What is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

I'm having a great time in my life but the physical part of me is beginning to show signs of wear. The temporary tent of my body is beginning to get a few holes around the seams and the stars of heaven are beginning to show through. I'm getting ready, eventually, to fold it up and move on. I'm going to leave the campground and go home to the City of God. I'm looking forward to that!

Heavenly Father: Thanks for the joys and blessings You put into my life day-by-day. I'm especially grateful when I think that these are only a taste of the full joys I will receive when I'm in my new "house" and safely home with You.