After my mother passed, I acquired her Bible.  She had a small, red leather-bound New King James version with her name Joanne “Jo” Powell engraved on the front.  She had passages where she highlighted them in yellow and where she had underlined some.  She put notes to the sides of her Bible.  It gave me comfort reading her side notes and what she had highlighted.  I set her Bible aside for several months, went back to my own, then got hers out again and started reading a couple of days ago.

I came across her handwritten note to the side of the verse below that I don’t remember seeing the last time.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”  —  1Corinthians 2:9

To the side of that verse she wrote,  “Oh, how I love this!  Heaven is going to be wonderful.”  I smiled and cried at the same time.  I smile because I know she is in Heaven and it is wonderful.  I cry because I miss her so much and it saddens me that I cannot talk to her this side of Heaven.

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven

with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. 

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together

with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. 

And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”       ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 17-18