When I Go To Heaven...

Today I bought a minivan. The Jetta was becoming more and more unreliable, even a little scary to drive, and it didn't fit more than two kids comfortably. As schooling approaches like a tidal wave (they grow SO fast), it was time to upgrade to something larger as I begin the routine of carpooling and soccer games. Brian and I had planned to get something bigger this spring/summer, so it seemed somewhat normal to do this, but not really. It felt HUGE to not have him by my side, for us to do our normal deliberation for hours over the right color, the right style, the right whatever. (We creative types have a tendency to be seriously high maintenance.) But in all honesty, it doesn't feel right to go back to who I was before Brian went home. I found myself feeling safe in God's arms as I prayed for the right vehicle to become available. Peter and Melanie joined me in the search and proved to be my dear sister and brother. Yes, we all teared up thinking of Brian driving the van with all the kids yelling in the back. We decided he was probably driving the coolest car in Heaven, because we knew he would have made the minivan look cool, simply by the way he sat behind the wheel and took his time doing everything.

But this entry is really not about buying the van, it is about what happened when I had all four Maynor kids in the van and the conversations that ensued.

L: "When I get to Heaven, I'm going to tickle Jesus!"
M: "When I get to Heaven, I'm going to run and yell (and he made some funny noise here), and then tickle Jesus."
L: "C (their friend) said that when he gets to Heaven, he's going to eat an apple and play baseball."

How beautiful to think that Heaven is that real to them.

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