Last night, in my utter weariness over yesterday’s car-removal task (which did NOT go well – Sally was beyond sad, beyond devastated), and in my ongoing sadness over my boy, I went to bed early. Honestly, I could go to bed at 6:30 every night. But I make myself last through dinner and try to play with the cat – the poor cat – a little. God, thank you for my sweet husband, who does the dishes every night and gets the coffee-maker filled and ready for my early rising each morning.

As I laid there in bed, it occurred to me then that some good books on the afterlife might help; I want to understand what Mark’s experiencing. I’d read several in the past and would go dig them out again from our library in the basement, but wanted more.

I plodded downstairs and found my iPad and then climbed back under the covers. I pulled up Amazon in my browser and started scrolling through the “Afterlife” selection. It didn’t take long before I was getting more and more repelled/freaked out by excerpts from some of the top sellers in that genre: “…the ectoplasm dripped” was my favorite quote. Seances, tarot cards — no thanks.  I miss my son with every single fiber of my being; I do not understand why he cannot be here, but I am also a person who follows the rules, and I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to “go there.”  I want to keep trying to trust God, to wait on Him, so right now the idea of seeing a medium or whatever just feels…wrong, although I totally understand why people seek them out in their pain and desperation for answers (perhaps it is foolish for me to use the word “never”).  I wrestle with the idea of prophets – who are given the gift of prophesy, of divine insight by God – and those who have that same gift today.  I know people who have intuition, nudges, ESP and visions.  There are so many things that are hard to understand. Are we meant to?  I reason: surely it’s okay to want to know more about heaven?  Like buying a travel guide. But who is trustworthy?

Today’s devotional readings turn out to be spot-on. In Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling,” she writes: To walk along the path of freedom, you must keep your mind firmly fixed on me.  Many voices proclaim, “This is the way for you to go” but only my voice tells you the true way.

The accompanying bible verse is the same one sent to me last week by Katie:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”             Isaiah 30:21

As I turned out the light, that was my prayer: help me find the right book, God.