Today, I was looking at some old correspondence from 15 years ago and came across some exchanges of letters I had with a dear woman who had lost her daughter unexpectedly a few months before. This kind lady passed into the 'Next World' 7 years ago and I think she would not mind me posting an extract from her writings:
"My sister does not believe that my daughter visits me and I am pretty sure she doesn?t think that I have talked to Jesus personally. Which I have. He visited me with my daughter the other day. She made an introduction and it was incredible!!! I am writing all these things down and some day will have them all together and send you copies to read.
I do not know if you have ever had a glimpse of heaven but it is so beautiful!!! I was taken on a small visit in the spirit. I am not a nut!!! This is happening. It was not a dream, I was fully awake and Jesus came and took me for a walk up a golden river of light. He showed me my house on the river and said that is your house when you get here. My grandmother was there and my daughter was riding a beautiful white horse. Then we left and were standing on a star. The star was no bigger than a house. And we were looking back at this world. Jesus said look and I did. He said when this happens........ He waved his hand and the world as we know it just fell away. Quietly and almost gently. Never the less even the world as we know it drifted into spirit. Jesus said no more to me. And I was back in my chair at home.
It was a beautiful vision. It stays clearly in my mind. In fact I have been inspired to paint the river. Now let me tell you how funny that is!!! I have never painted a thing in my life. But I feel I must attempt this painting. I do not understand all that is happening. But I am at peace most of the time."
Great dream.
Hi Last Post. If you feel like it is appropriate to share more. I would like to know more about this lady. Like her story with universalism, or her just her story in general - like maybe how she came to believe and what happened when she did.The vision is wonderful so I would just like to know more about the person it was given to
Thanks
Andrew
Ps. The only thing that threw me off a bit was it being a house where you might expect it to be the Biblical mansion? But a house by a river is my dream life. So a house by a golden river would be wonderful for real.
I only exchanged correspondence during this bereaved mother's first few months of suffering and I tried to bring some comfort to her as I was able to. I did not press her and I doubt even if I had much more that it would be appropriate to make public without her family's blessing.
As for taking μοναὶ to mean mansions, I have generally understand this to mean abiding places or dwelling places, in other words, it may be a Divine place to dwell, but in the context of eternity I find it bizarre that a child of God should expect to be confined to one so-called place for ever. Such a thing, to me, seems somewhat limiting considering what, to my mind, God has in store for His own children, indeed the idea of confinement to this one eternal so-named mansion, to my sensibilities, demeans the plan the loving Parent has for His own beloved.
To my mind, the Lord God Almighty, Creator, Spirit of spirits, has desired to give Himself to His children, that is, what He has, He wants to give to His beloved ones. The child is never the Parent but a child of God is not to be thought of anthropomorphically, that is, in the human way, but rather in the way of the Spirit.
An infant is not taken from a nursery and transferred directly to the world of industry and adult responsibility. What makes a human on earth think he or she will somehow have the will, experience and control of power simply by the change called physical death? To my mind the man in the flesh is still the same man when the body is dropped. It is only the human mind that has conditioned itself - and been conditioned - by other words from the minds of men, albeit inspired in many cases but limited, inadequate and incapable of expressing realities that are far beyond the human mind's circumference.
So when the Master Christ spoke of being in the Father and how the Father was in Him, to my understanding Christ was declaring what He had known and experienced from an early age but which had grown and become more and more pronounced, that indeed He, the Christ, is and always has been, and so He was experiencing the great I Am, and knowing only the few would know even a fraction of this I-Am-Ness, He declared that He was taking those who would follow Him under His wing, into Himself as He was in the Father, leading them to that Oneness with God, that Unity, that non-separateness where their experience was such that they were indeed children of God, knowing Him within themselves, and knowing themselves within Him, even in this material sphere - not as an intellectual understanding but as a lived experience, not trying to be in the I Am but finding themselves in the I Am.
But not an experience merely of some kind of universal force, no, but experience of the Divine Heart in a way that no other human had experienced before and would ever again experience, not with such purity and perfection by far. And to add to this He could see the Spirit World around Him too. A man and yet not like any other man. So to paint this inadequate picture of Christ Jesus is to show, to my mind, that knowing the Savour Christ Jesus is the answer to all questions, a knowing where the slants of words and the divisiveness that arises when men disagree and create their doctrines behind which they shelter has no place and is seen and known for what it is - the outer shell of theories that will be cast off in time like the shell of a crab or the now useless body of the caterpillar no longer required as a new creature arises to glorify the beauty of the mind and Heart of God.
He came to show many things, not least that as He brought nothing with Him that would give Him advantage over any other human born to this tiny planet, that the limited things He did with His power were also available to the one willing to walk in His footsteps. And, in my opinion, each and every one of His children shall walk in His footsteps metaphorically speaking, that is they will know the full range of the deep pangs of Love and how the Heart of Love is hurt, despised and rejected by His creation over and over again through ignorance and separateness.
To follow on, so that one terrible incident where His own offspring, who He had come to save, hurled its hatred at Him with cries for death, was one example of the millions of pangs the suffering Parent - Mother and Father combined in Heart and devotion - has and will experience, not simply ignored and misunderstood but attacked and literally hated. And so He came to show to the eyes of humankind a physical example of how His own children treat Him, that they might understand Him and His unthinkable devotion to them.
So in this respect as Man, the Lord God of all triumphed, whose fulness was carried in Jesus. He who was alone and isolated in the world as He experienced the world like no other - a world that would build Him up so that He might stand and overcome all, for, in my opinion, the sensitiveness of the Christ was such that He felt the pain and distress of others many times more than any human could experience. Many sensitives have come into the world and it is common sense for them to think that the world can be led by those not so easily pained and it is better to take to a quiet corner. But what those others bring is material thinking which misleads the children of God, devoid of the Divine power necessary to prepare the children of God spiritually for that place they shall go to because of Him, and so the most sensitive One of all Himself was prepared by the harshness of the environment into which He had chosen to come - that He might not fail and be able to face the world and take its sin upon His shoulders and yet prevail.
No, mansions I do not take literally, neither do I take the literalness of the minds of men as they would have it. Literalness has its place as can be seen in places where those who benefit from it gather together. The children of God need guidance, and not all guidance is the same for all of those He has made out of Himself and in doing so has given eternal life, having come from His own very Divine eternal Nature, but without experience. The gist of it all - the gist and its influence - that is what I personally take from it - oh, and the gist of it will change a child of God forever.
Interesting picture seems to be that the mansions will be like a base to come home to, not a gaol/jail.
We currently have a house but are not permanently locked in the house.
Spiritual substance must exist as this was there before the world began.
Beautiful visions reinforce that magnitude of what is to come.
Thanks for responding Last Post. I really enjoyed reading your response. That has got me interested in wanting to know your story. If you care to share I would love to know how you came into your Christian walk - if you had a born again experience and how you came to believe in Universal Restoration.
Thanks again for your response. It really hit home for me.
Andrew