The Hope of Halloween?

With Halloween upon us, there is a lot of talk about saints, souls, and spirits. During any other time of the year, you’d get the impression that those things don’t exist because they can’t be explained scientifically. Yet all of a sudden, we’re bombarded with the ethereal at Halloween! I can’t tell you how many times I attempt a conversation dealing with the “spiritual” side of life, only to be shushed or looked at with full blown skepticism, as if the spiritual realm can’t be “known” and references to it are purely conjecture. How fickle our culture is today. Stories of vampires have made it big in Hollywood, but mention of a personal soul with a personal relationship to a loving creator God, and you should be tried among the witches of Salem!

In reality, most of us have loved ones or have known people who have passed on to live in a realm that is entirely “spiritual” and where most of us hope to find ourselves after we shed our physical bodies. But the fact remains – eternity has already begun! It is ongoing and we are part of it. Our friends and loved ones live on, though in an entirely new dimension and each of us will meet with them again in our new dwelling.

Friends, this IS the hope of our faith. This IS cause for great celebration! Few things excite me as much as the thought of life with God in an unimaginably free state of being where all is set right and creative possibilities are limitless for all eternity. To dwell with God, who IS LOVE and has created us for his purposes is what awaits each of us. We have been given a great gift - eternal life after this vale of tears. Rejoice, my friends, when this life presses hard (and it does) in the words of Jesus – “In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also”.

~ Amy