My dear friend Thelma came to stay with us for a few nights. She needed a quiet retreat to get some work done on several projects; the second, third and fourth books in her “God’s Lil People” series for kids, and another unusual book which I am really excited about!
Since I’ve known Thelma, she has had a passion for exposing children to the miraculous and supernatural power of a living God. She and her husband, Lou, live with their oldest daughter, son-in-law and their three children in a sprawling house on several acres in Kissimmee, Florida. The oldest granddaughter, who is now ten, has been regularly visiting Heaven in her dreams at night for the past six years or so. When the family finally realizedthis, Thelma began chronicling Rachel’s experiences in the morning after she wakes up. Rachel recites and Grama writes with a fury.
I just spent a good part of the last few days reading Rachel’s journeys to Heaven (since 2009); her descriptions of what she sees there, rooms and levels, healing grass, mountains that move then explode into waterfalls that flow with healing water to us on earth, her personally assigned angels named Promise and Laughy, who take her places throughout Heaven, explain things to her and give her a birthday party, people she meets, such as her dad’s parents, who she never knew on earth because they died before she was born, and best of all her wonderful conversations with Jesus whom she often meets in their special “Love Tree” where they climb up to just sit and talk. According to Rachel, the Love Tree has large, beautiful rose–like flowers all over it, you can eat them and they taste really wonderful.
It is an adventure full of joy, beauty, love and trust with simple, yet profound revelation of doctrine, theology and scripture, things that Rachel is still too young to understand, but are very evident in her conversations and discoveries. It is also an unveiling of the wondrous heart of God for all His children, who sparkle like diamonds on earth when Rachel and Jesus look at us from Heaven.
The most awesome surprise in Rachel’s dreams is that Heaven is already on earth and we spend so much time mired in our natural and physical, temporary realities, we aren’t even aware of it. We don’t understand what being, “Seated in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6) really means or what, “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) can do for us nor do we totally grasp the concept of, “On earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). We don’t realize that we are already living in the Eternal and this life is just a chapter in the never ending adventure.
The past decade of my life, God has been speaking to my own heart about how complicated I make Him, how I want to do what He has already done and how I attempt to reason instead of trust. Like Rachel says, your spirit where Jesus already lives, should always ‘pump up’ to your mind. Your mind should never ‘pump down’ to your spirit. How I long to live in that place where my mind is servant to God’s spirit within me!
To be privileged to read Rachel’s encounters and have my own understanding further enlightened and my heart set free inside a simple, yet deeper level of truth, is a great joy and honor. I feel as if I’m floating in another realm just thinking of it! I can’t give it all away, but I’m incredibly thankful that I have been asked to be a part of this project-layout, design, editing-whatever way I can help, I am thrilled to do so.
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” (Mark:10:14) As Rachel teaches us about the Kingdom of God in Heaven and it‘s connection to earth, I’m more than willing to follow along and learn of Him, whom my soul loves and longs for above all else.
Mark 10:13-16 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them