Probably as much as my 9 year old thinks and talks about aliens (and how he wants to go to the celestial kingdom so he can create them) I have been thinking about the next life--the one I will awake to when this mortal coil has finished wrapping its sorrow around me and springs me into eternity. I think about it more than I ever have before in my life. I am willing to endure whatever keeps piling up on my plate and endure it well with the shining hope of a better world and a treasure that moths can't corrupt.

I don't think I can explain well how I am thinking and feeling.

The other day I was running through the ups and downs of the foothills near my home. I turned down a steep road and looked over the valley with blue sunlight streaming through the clouds onto the lake and I was filled. I had thoughts of gratitude. I'm so grateful I am healthy. I'm so grateful my kids are healthy- that David is healthy. I'm so grateful we are still a family. I'm so grateful my van runs. I'm so grateful I have a warm home. I'm so grateful I have food. I'm so grateful I have a job. The basics. I have the basics. Do I want more? I feel grateful and satisfied with the basics. Maybe later -maybe in the next life- I will have more but right now the basics fill me up.

Maybe I'm afraid to have more now because I'd rather have it later when it'll last and not fade away. It's not about fear though. I hold onto my covenants. The promises of my covenants push me through the disappointment, the desperate feeling of losing what I wanted most, the sorrow. Recently I was asked to make a list of character traits of myself- to know who I am. The one that I put on the top is "covenant keeper". I think I can wrap my identity up in those two words --when the coils of this life wrap around me, the promise of my covenants that I keep will spring me into that better world.

And this world will become like a dream.