Heaven

I finished "90 Minutes" tonight. If anyone has ever lost someone close, that book will really give you hope. I dogeared three pages toward the end so I'm going to go back to the paragraphs that seemed to mean a lot to me.

"For them, time is not passing. Everything is in the eternal now - even if I can't put that into words. Even if ten more years pass, or thirty, in heaven it will be only an instant before I'm back there again."

"I don't have a death wish. I'm not suicidal, but every day I think about going back. I long to return. In God's timing, I know with utter certainty that I will. Now I look forward to that time and eagerly await the moment. I have absolutely no fear of death. Why would I? There's nothing to fear - only joy to experience."

"Being separated from them had never crossed my mind while I was in heaven. People in heaven simply don't have an awareness of who is not there. They do know who is coming."

"I am here, I am alive, and it's because God's purposes have not yet been fulfilled in my life. When God is finished with me, I'll return to the place I yearn to be."

It comes as no surprise to me that Matt had fulfilled God's purposes for him. What were his purposes? I can think of a few:

• Bringing people together in the hospital under one common cause: to pray him back to health
• Persevering through his recovery, living life to the fullest and, by doing so, bringing hope to other traumatic brain injury survivors
• Finding true love that was right under his nose the whole time ;) And he loved with every bit of his heart and soul
  
• Showing me God in his life, and truly leading me to Him in his death
• Giving life to two beautiful little souls; maybe they are supposed to do big things in their lives
• Bringing people together again upon his death

And I'm sure many more great things I haven't listed. There's probably way too many to list all of them. He is the type of person I aspire to be like.