Light dances behind my eyelids. I see an array of colors blinding me, holding me captive. Warmth fills me all over. This warmth I have been waiting to feel my whole life. I am tingling. All over I am vibrating with something. My body feels like it is screaming….no, screaming is the wrong word. My body feels like it is singing. Singing a song beyond words. I can’t see anything but light and a vision of purple, pink and yellow. I feel completely, humanly alone. Yet I’ve never felt more complete. I feel something so different than ever before that I am not even sure a word exists for it.

Suddenly, I am spinning. My world is exploding in flashes of brilliant splendor. I unexpectedly feel not part of myself anymore. I feel part of something bigger than my inconsequential little body. I remember so many things, but not the things you’d think. When my life flashes before me, I see the love my mother felt when holding me in the hospital. I see the colors of the legos I played with as a child. I see the bright yellow of my first Easter dress. When I look back, I see my father’s quiet tears behind his bedroom door when he first heard my mother had cancer.

I see my brother standing up for me to all those bullies at school. I see my baby sister being born. I see the flash of pink lips as I get my first kiss. The joy I felt at driving my first car. I see me on my bedroom floor, accepting the truth that a Man died for me. I see the deep, loving eyes of my husband waiting for me as I walk down the aisle. I feel the intimacy all over again of what it means to make love.

I hold my children again. I teach them how to ride a bike. I see the straw colored hair of my daughter as she goes to her prom and the leanness of my first-born boy as he hits a homerun. I pluck my first gray hair. I hold my mother as she leaves this world. I wake up again and again to see my husband lying next to me watching me sleep. I relive praying, hoping, laughing, hurting, crying.

I experience colors, sounds, taste, and touch all over again – but it is all so different than it was the first time around. The memories interweave themselves in a tangled web of love and joy…even the bad memories and even the sinful ones. I see them all transformed into beauty and then slowly washed away. I feel an overwhelming feeling of thanks, of joy, of love. Love for my parents, my husband, my children, my beautiful life. I feel so much that I could burst with joy. As I think this, I hear something in return.

“You think this feeling is something? This is nothing compared to what I feel for you.” Someone laughs. The laughing echoes through my body, as if it is coming from inside of me, and yet I know it is not.

I am not able to see much yet. Just speckles of light. I know if I could open my eyes, I would be blinded. Even though my body feels absent, I still feel a soft, calming warmth. It must be love. I feel so much love because I know it is radiating from Something out there in the blinding sea of light. I know that I am not with my children or my husband and I know the thought of this should sadden me – but it doesn’t. Somehow I knew it would come down to this. In the end, it is just me and this overwhelming love. I have never felt so complete.

I feel as if I am running. Rushing toward something that I want so bad that it hurts. It is the origin of where all the love comes from, where the joy is exuding from. I must have it. I suddenly feel an unquenchable thirst. If I reach the place where it all originates from, I can drown in love. I can bask in it and love and be loved forever.

I have a choice. I can stay where I am and enjoy love from a distance, where I know I will be comfortable, or I can run into the radiance.  So I run.

If I had a body, I would have been knocked over by the force of love that hit me. I am loved more than I could ever know. And I realize something…..I am pure. Really, truly pure. When I realize this, I feel emotion so deep rising in me that tears drip down my face. I weep for all the people that did not choose to be known by a love as astounding as this. I weep because the weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am no longer a sinner, broken, used and tired. I am lovely and full of a light that pulses radiance in me like it is my own blood.

Suddenly, the blinding light eases into a warm glow. I feel like flesh and blood again and so I open my eyes. I am in a green valley filled with lilies. Mountains rise up around me and their snow capped peaks touch the sky. Straight ahead lies a sea that stretches into forever. On the beach I see a city. I hear singing coming from the city and it fills the valley with sweet music, notes of the angelic.

Laughter fills my ears and I turn around to see my family dancing and twirling in the flowers of the valley. “Isn’t it great Mommy?” my little girl says. Someone takes my hand and spins  me around. I look up into deep eyes, that know me better than I could ever know myself.

“This is all for you,”He says, with a twinkle in his eyes. I am so entranced that not a word comes out of my mouth.

“So since you are, for lack of a better word, struck speechless, I was thinking that instead of talking you might like to dance with me.” He laughs and bows, the perfect gentleman. Shockingly, I giggle and he does too.

“Yes, please.” He slips his hand in mine. It is rough and warm. His arm circles my waist and before I know it, we are spinning wildly around the valley dancing and giggling and singing. I feel him whisper in my ear, “I chose you at the very beginning so that I could dance with you like this at the very end. I adore you.”

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Over the next several months, SGMRadio will be posting guest blogs from Christian writers across the nation and across the world. Some of these writers are musicians, some are photographers, some are philosophers. We hope that you embrace each one as they give a part of themselves to our world.

For this blog,  SGMRadio is thrilled to welcome guest blogger Chelsie Wehde who has given us a unique and thrilling vision of Heaven. We hope you enjoy this view of the eternal from a talented young lady. Please access her blog here: http://chelsiewehde.com/ and read more from Chelsie. View her photographs and read all about Trades of Hope.  Leave her a note and thank her for her contribution to SGMRadio and our world.

Chelsie Wehde, Biography

First of all….. hello! I’m a goofball who loves to travel the world, blog about nonsensical things, and make up pretend languages. Nerd at heart. Ultimate LOTR fan (nerds will get that). Business Owner. All around entrepreneur, thrill seeker, adventurer, and child at heart.

My quick bio in three boring paragraphs: I grew up as a homeschooler, and graduated high school with a college degree focused on International Politics and a minor in Biblical History. (I have since started my last two years of college with a major in Business!) I have been blessed to be a part of a church plant with my parents, where I have helped teach and lead children, drama, dance and youth.

My parent’s willingness to follow Christ has engrained in me a sense of adventure and a desire to fall more in love with Jesus. Because of this adventurous spirit, I have traveled to many places in Haiti, Israel and Italy. I’ve been a fitness trainer, real estate assistant, dance teacher, acting coach, youth leader, and business founder. In each new season of life, my redeemer has revealed to me his faithfulness. I absolutely love experiencing Jesus through travel and culture, and I am excited to see where I am called next!

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of adventure. I’ve dreamed of danger, excitement, true love and great battles. For a while, I believed that those adventures didn’t exist anymore…that they only happened in the story books. You know what God showed me? The story books got nothing on him. I am a woman who is deeply in love with Jesus and I know that he has created me for epic adventures. I am willing to pursue my creator at all costs. I seek to live every moment fully alive, never hesitating to do crazy things, love open-heartedly, and take action to change the world.

 Talk to you soon, 

                -Chels