When do we people go to the afterlife

[reFORMer]

My mother's father was a Pastor that earlier in his life, in the beginning of the 20th Century, held tent meetings where the sick were healed.  When he died in '63 we counted over 30 churches still going that he had started.  Mother was an only child.  Perhaps that is part of why I became so close to her parents.  Every where that they moved grandma would set up a wren's house.  God faithfully gave her dear little feathered residents that she loved so much.  It was not 'til several months after she died that I heard of her death.

I lived in a small cabin in Minnesota.  I had an outdoor toilet and hauled in on a toboggan the wood that I burned.  I milked goats and helped the neighboring farmers, living off little more than food stamps.  I had a beard, read Puritan theology and smoked big cigars.

The morning after I heard grandma had died I opened my eyes to see 7 or 8 wrens fluttering against the window over my bed.  Ever since, in times of transition I notice wrens fluttering around me, and it may have been years since seeing any.  It is as though a sign that my heavenly Father sees me and cares for me.  Now, in this place he has given me, I'm on a major fly through for them.  Thousand of them migrate through here.  A little north of us is even a town called Wrens.  They're here year round.  One of them flys around the house every day chirping.  It's even come inside and responded well to my leading it outside again.

While I know God cares for me, that doesn't mean that I am happy.  Whether knowledge or suffering, even waiting, there are things we have been assigned that we have to get through.  Whatever of Adam is our lot, that we must be victorious over.  We must die to the flesh and come into Christ.  The Overcomers get the prize.

[sparrow]

Very beautiful post, ReFORMer...
 

Thank you for sharing that.

[reFORMer]

Some of my problem with resting in God's love is I know daddy spanks.  (It's at the level of Divine beings too!)

[jabcat]

Some of my problem with resting in God's love is I know daddy spanks.  (It's at the level of Divine beings too!)

Me too, James  .

[Cardinal]

  Me three, reFormer.......

[aspiring son]

My mother's father was a Pastor that earlier in his life, in the beginning of the 20th Century, held tent meetings where the sick were healed.  When he died in '63 we counted over 30 churches still going that he had started.  Mother was an only child.  Perhaps that is part of why I became so close to her parents.  Every where that they moved grandma would set up a wren's house.  God faithfully gave her dear little feathered residents that she loved so much.  It was not 'til several months after she died that I heard of her death.

I lived in a small cabin in Minnesota.  I had an outdoor toilet and hauled in on a toboggan the wood that I burned.  I milked goats and helped the neighboring farmers, living off little more than food stamps.  I had a beard, read Puritan theology and smoked big cigars.

The morning after I heard grandma had died I opened my eyes to see 7 or 8 wrens fluttering against the window over my bed.  Ever since, in times of transition I notice wrens fluttering around me, and it may have been years since seeing any.  It is as though a sign that my heavenly Father sees me and cares for me.  Now, in this place he has given me, I'm on a major fly through for them.  Thousand of them migrate through here.  A little north of us is even a town called Wrens.  They're here year round.  One of them flys around the house every day chirping.  It's even come inside and responded well to my leading it outside again.

While I know God cares for me, that doesn't mean that I am happy.  Whether knowledge or suffering, even waiting, there are things we have been assigned that we have to get through.  Whatever of Adam is our lot, that we must be victorious over.  We must die to the flesh and come into Christ.  The Overcomers get the prize.

Amen. Great post

Grace and Peace

[Cardinal]

  This is a beautiful post by RLV that I pulled from her thread, because of some things she brought out pertaining to the soul.

The "woman" ...soul...was in a NOT yet "saved" state in the Vasthi
state..........even tho she was "called"
she was refused.
The "soul" is not saved til 1'st Peter 1:9 comes
to pass.
Which says: "Receiving the END of your faith, even
the salvation of your "soul."
When that comes to pass, the "woman" or "soul" is completely made
ONE with the Spirit from which the woman who brought forth the manchild
must be reunited.
The soul must be reunited with the Spirit.
He that is joined "to" the Lord is ONE Spirit.
The Spirit and His washed clean Bride....and He is the One
that "washed her" .........Eph 5
The woman must be reunited with her Son that she
brought forth and was caught up to the heavens. Rev. 12
She is nourished in the wilderness. Til it happens.
Without "faith" it is impossible to "please" God.
Esther pleased him, who was the type.
She "readied" herself on the 3rd day!

She seems to be a type of the "woman" in Revelation
that "to her was "granted" that she should be arrayed in fine linen."
She put on her beautiful garments and made herself ready.
She went in with blind "faith" and ended up
being told she and Mordecai could rewrite the judgement.
She made herself "ready" ...she was a "beautiful" woman
washing herself and she belonged to ONE.....she
was not the property of the Davids. You will remember
that DAVID tried to seize Bathsheba but had to pass thru
a real dark night before God gave her to him. So like Bathsheba, Estherdid not belong to the Davids, But she
was ONE with the ONE with whom she had made
herself ready. Put on thy "beautiful garments" AWAKE
O Zion, the holy city, for "henceforth" there shall no more
come into thee, the uncircumcised and the unclean. Isa. 52
The curse was broken. So the uncircumcised and unclean
could NOT but attempt! God made them fall for her sake.
Esther on the 3rd day put on her royal apparel and
stood in the INNER court of the Kings House!
Pharo claimed his river as "his own" but God said it wasn't.
But it would seem that God "gave" the "RIVER" to Esther.
The River became her own by flowing to her and Mordecai
to rewrite.......to reverse.......the curse.
Jesus rewrote it.
He knew.
His Father had commanded Him.
He knew that it was a commandment UNTO LIFE.
Remember Jesus saying "I have received a commandment
from the Father and I "KNOW" that it's LIFE everlasting!
He Removed the "death" on the Cross.
The curse turned into a blessing.
In the faith in Him state, Esther found FAVOR with the MAN
tho at that stage, she knew not whether she would
touch the "scepther" of Blessing in him, or
whatever else might be in the man to whom she
was sent to see.
Sorta like us, we have been taught we might touch that
"negative" side.
The "father of our faith" is Abraham.
He is the type of "going to a land that thou knowest NOT."
But in the progression of following HIM, we find
that He has already nailed death to the cross.
We are the Apple of His Eye....."because'
we are the WORK of HIS Hands.

Remember the woman that said to her husband, "If He
were not pleased with us, why would He show us all this?
Do not be deceived as was Eve. Disobedience breeds deceit.
Deceit does not bring the proceeding River from the Throne.
The Mother of all living who brings forth thru "travail." is Eve.
But
Jerusalem from ABOVE is FREE!
Without travail. FREE.
Depicting the two covenants.
It would seem to me that this "woman" who is FREE has been
reunited with the Son.
The end of our Salvation. 1st Peter 1:9
which is called the "salvation of the soul."
The time comes in our lives,
when
The "salvation" of our SOULS breaks the covenant with "death."
No more death. That does not mean that "death" will
not still "try" to come against us, but "we" are passed
from "death" unto LIFE and it's "effects" are LOST....
The Word says:
Isaiah 54:15 -
Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall ........
.fall for thy sake.
Tho Baalim climbs to the highest religious realm,
his eyes get opened and
he learns that GOD HAS BLESSED YOU!!
God "knows" that the first man was born blind.
In a sense.
And that HE must come forth with the Judgement UNTO LIFE
to take away that vanity thru the HOPE that HE also put in us
from the beginning.
He teaches each one of His Jewels Himself.
We know nothing about the knowlege of God until the Spirit
teaches it.
And what we "do NOT know" it is because we are not
ready for it. Jesus said, "I have many things to tell you
but you can't bear them now."
Walk in the "light" He has given and that causes more
LIGHT to be given.
Refuse to walk in it, and it causes a "delay"
of what HE knows about you and is eager for you to
know about yourself.
It does not change what is written and settled in the
Eternal Heaven about us, but it "delays" our knowing about it.
Truth KEEPS! Preserves. God knows how to "reserve or preserve" it
in the heavens.
It is God's plan for our understanding to "progress."
He does not feed meat to babies.
And we are told to be as little children.
We know by that it is about LOVE, not
about "knowledge." God is not impressed
with the legs of a man.
Neither is He a Respector of persons.
Seek and "ye" shall find; Rejoice with Jerusalem
and ye too will "milk out."
His eyes are on the Work of His Own Spirit.
That He Alone has done. Without the tool of man.
We learn all that as He progresses us in leaning not to
our own understanding, but here a little, there a little,
line on line, etc.
God's work in us shall see to it that that our earth
shall be covered with the KNOWLEDGE of God
as the "waters cover the sea."
Been covered with the Knowledge of the Wrong Tree
long enough. Ha So instead of being "covered" with the
Ezek. 28 so called "covering" we shall be "covered" with
a Robe of Righteousness, which HE clothes us with.
Our flesh starts out with a WAR against the Spirit.
Guess who wins?
And guess who gets full salvation thru the process?
Love and God quicken this word ....
Death to death!

__________________
And everywhere that the River ran, there was a healing!
THE MINISTRY BEHIND THE VEIL
The ministry of Spirit to Spirit is "behind the second veil" ........
unseen by man but special garments are given
for that ministry. They are "taken off" for the ministry "to the people."

[Raggedy Anne]

Best post on this entire thread.

I see the same thing, brother.

Do our loved ones sorrow for us...?? Well, if they see the bigger picture, there's not much need for sorrow and I believe they are cheering us on.

They are with us.

When my mother died, the split second before she died she said hello to my granny (who died 3 yrs before). I knew in my heart and in my soul that my granny WAS present and came to bring her home. My mother was dying of cancer, and had been thrashing a little back and forth and muttering and all of a sudden a great peace suddenly came over her from out of nowhere, she grew still and silent and said with all the wonder her voice could fathom... "Hi granny.....!"
A little bird who had flew on our windowsill and stood there looking in at us for several minutes and wouldn't leave, suddenly flew off the very SECOND that she died.

2 Weeks before my beloved dog died in January, my mother came to me in a dream and gave me a long, wonderful, comforting hug. (I've never had that happen to me in the 20 years that she has been dead. I woke up out of the dream in a "almost shocked" sort of state, because the dream was so intense and I just kept repeating to myself... oh my GOD! That was my mother. That was her essence, that wasn't just a dream... that was REALLY my mother! Her smell, her tight grip, the absolute comfort, everything about that hug was my mother.) After my dog died, I was a mess. I was so distressed my hair started to fall out and I developed hives. My dog also came back to me THREE times in very distinct dreams  the night that he died and the week after, that I, again, woke right up out of. He showed me how happy and healthy and surrounded by love he was. He was doing things he wasn't able to on earth. A few other encouraging messages I got from those dreams, but they're personal.

I was still distressed because I had so much guilt, wishing things had been different, etc. (as we all do I suppose). But, anyway I got so bad one day, I had to stay home from work because I cried all day long and just couldn't shake it. Slowly but surely, the dreams started to sink in.  God pointed me to many wonderful things in the bible. And a lot of other just truly beautiful things happened, especially some things that help snap me out of a year-long depression I had. Things have happened that have brought forth a need to put more love and kindness in this world. A need to rise above my earthly self and just do whatever I can do LOVE. To get past my earthly insecurities and limitations and LOVE. He worked some miracles in me and I have absolute, 100% faith that the moment we die, we go on and we are in the heavenlies. I will NEVER Forsake this belief. EVER.

My mother hugging me... I didn't realize it when it happened, but I was going to need that comfort. The year before I had been so distressed over things that had to do with events surrounding the death of HER mother, (my grandmother) and that was the first time my hair started falling out from stress. Then a year later, the stress enveloped me once more. She knew I needed that hug. (BEFORE I KNEW THAT I WOULD NEED THAT HUG. Do you see.... I had no idea the amount of distress I would be under when I had that dream. And I woke up perplexed at why, after TWENTY years would she NOW come to me?) And I believe things happened, and still more things happened in a way that would help me to really have faith in this belief of mine. I had already believed this. I never believed that when we die, we are just asleep. It was a hope deep inside of me and I had faith in it. Well God NURTURED it in a truly wonder-filled way. I think sometimes you just get to be shown stuff for a reason. We all have different little pieces of the puzzle. This puzzle piece is just... I can't tell you how sacred it is. I can't describe how valuable and beautiful it is to me. No matter the sorrow I went through to get it, the sorrow was just a stepping stone, in my eyes. and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

No mere human can ever say anything that will ever make me believe otherwise.
I see something that is so beautiful and wonder-filled....
God made me stumble across something that said "Native Americans believe that when a loved one died, they appear in a dream to a family member to let them know they are ok." I was not looking for this information, I just happened upon it.
Funny, how I have Native American blood and it was a Native American couple who helped me to understand Jesus.

Our God is VERY good.

VERY VERY VERY Good indeed.

But realizing having shared all of this, I do know that we are each on our own path.
I won't debate this view.
I just won't. If someone doesn't see it this way, that's fine.
No-one's beliefs intimidate my beliefs about this.

They are rock solid.
un-moving.

peace...

Sparrow -
This is such a heart-warming, personal story.  I'm so glad you took the time to share it.   I seem to think a lot about death these days.  It is coming very soon for all of us, so I imagine often what it will be like to leave this world and these earthly bodies behind.   

BTW, my mother appeared to me in a dream about 6 days after she died recently and we embraced.   She had a lot of native American (Cherokee) ancestry as well.  She lo, ved nature and was fascinated with trees and birds and feathers.

Thanks ...
Anne