Mountaintops

I took a vanful of kids skiing yesterday. It was, as it always is, glorious. Since we are homeschoolers, everyone else is in school, and we had the slopes largely to ourselves. The mist and fog would roll in periodically, and there were times that I could not see more than a few feet in front of me. For rare moments, the clouds would lift, as in the picture with this blog, and the view would take my breath away.

As darkness came, I was on a chairlift ascending to the top of the mountain. There was no one on any of the lifts I could see in front of me. The fog became thicker as we went higher. The silence was complete, muffled by the thick cloud around me. It became so milky, that even the lights were nearly extinguished. There was only a  faint white glow ahead, darkness all around. As the chairs in front of me vanished into the whiteness and I went higher into the cloud toward the distant glow, I thought of heaven. I almost expected God to be waiting as I got off the lift, His arms outstretched, His smile filled with love as He welcomed me to His mountaintop.

With a twinge of disappointment, I stepped off the chairlift. No pearly gates, no angels singing, no welcoming arms of my heavenly Father. Still, it was filled with peace and beauty atop the fog shrouded mountaintop, and reminded me Heaven awaits, in even more glorious splendor.

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Revelation 22:1-5 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Luke 23:43 

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

1 Corinthians 2:9 

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

Hebrews 11:16

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Revelation 21:22-27 

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.