Good dogs go to Heaven

Stories to Inspire

My friend Sully is a down to earth creative. He loves God as well as anyone, but isn’t exactly your garden variety cookie cutter church go-er. His style is somewhat maverick and very industrious. But God took him by surprise one evening in a group Heavenly experience. There were several great Heavenly encounters that evening, but I think Sully’s impacted me most deeply because Sully wasn’t exactly Sully, when he shared his story. His eyes wouldn’t stop leaking… and his sharing was labored and jerky, between deep waves of emotion. One needed to look no further to be solidly convinced of the powerful nature of Sully’s encounter. He was tearfully happy and a much free-er man than I’ve ever seen. For Sully, Father’s highly personalized Heavenly encounter was unforgettable and life changing.

O Lord, for many more Heavenly encounters!!!

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Good dogs go to Heaven

I was raised to believe that going to Heaven was going to be really cool when it happened.  I was told, “You’ll be with Jesus, the 12 Apostles and all the saints.” Wow that’s cool, is Judas gonna be there, dad?  He was an apostle, right?” Yes he was son; but he got cut from the team, and we made a trade with the Pharisees for Saint Paul”… You’ll be surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, too.” Okay, are they like fluffy clouds or more like stormy clouds?  “No son, the cloud of witnesses is all those who have gone to heaven before you.” Oh, so Grampa will be there? “Yes he will”.  That’s great, I miss him.  What about Teddy (our dog that got killed by a car) and Toots (the turtle whose death was caused by eating beyond his shell capacity)?  No son, only people will be in heaven.  You see son, animals don’t have eternal souls like we do.  Oh…uh….okay.  And so, that was my introduction to Heaven.  Oh, one more thing, you had to be dead to go there.

Fast forward about fifty years and my friend Mark is in my barn with about 20 other people asking all of us if we want to “spirit travel, and go to heaven”. I no longer had a child’s view of Heaven, which was rather unfortunate, because Mark told us that children have a much easier time of spirit traveling because their head doesn’t get in the way of their “golden imagination”.  I didn’t think I’d be going to heaven on Mark’s Spirit bus, with my thick head; but I figured, what the h…eaven, I’ll give it a try.

And so, the journey began, with Mark gently encouraging us to let go of our earthly tethers; and enter through the door… “Jesus is the Door”.  Those were the last words I remember him saying, my mind slipped it’s adult mooring and I was a child of God, wandering in His green and golden Heaven.  I found myself (a much younger me, maybe 13 or so) wandering carefree in what appeared to be an endless green field, on a bright and beautiful sunny day. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my favorite dog, Jedidiah was there with me. He was jumping out of his skin with joy, wagging not just his tail; but wagging his entire body. His excitement was all consuming and as I fell to my knees to hug him, he intensified his affection with sloppy wet face licks for his master. We were having such a joyous reunion, that time seemed to stand still; and all that remained was joy, pure unabashed joy.

I should tell you that I was in my 50’s, not a boy when Jedi was my dog. Also, you should know that Jedi was a ranch dog and didn’t like going to the vet, AT ALL; but when he started acting sluggish we took him anyway. We were heartbroken when our vet delivered the devastating news, our young, ‘wonderboy’ had inoperable cancer. A tumor was growing inside him and the best we could do was to keep him comfortable until it was time to put an end to his suffering.  So when the time came, rather than add to his suffering by taking him to the vet, I took it upon myself to end his life. I’m not a stranger to killing; but putting down my favorite dog was a bitter pill to swallow. 

I’ve been around joy junkies for a while now; and to be honest, I never really trusted them. Haha. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t judge them for their “drunk in Spirit” behavior, I just simply didn’t have a clue as to what the heck they were doing or talking about.  Well, that little trip to heaven really flipped the script on me.  NOW I have an understanding of the joy they are talking about; but I have to say that little 3 letter word is woefully inadequate to describe my experience.  

When Mark asked if anyone wanted to share their experience to the group, I was very reluctant and finally, under the unction of the Holy Spirit, tried to explain what happened. However, I was so saturated by this emersion in God’s bottomless ocean of JOY, that salt water was springing from my eyes! Now, if those tears had letters or words, I’m sure they would tell you about this level of joy a whole lot better than me. I simply cannot find adequate words to describe it; and for 6 months I’ve tried! The closest I can get is “Heavenly Joy”… and I pray you and I get to have some more of it before we get there! – SS

–MLH

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