Part I
CROSSING
OVER
1
HEAVEN . . . COULD IT BE, had I finally arrived? I’d crossed over, survived beyond the shadow of death, pierced the veil of mortality, and found myself in a new reality, the world we on Earth have given the name heaven to! At last—it was a place, not merely an idea, but a world not really prepared for just us, and it was not at all like I’d imagined.
Heaven, with its well-established culture and population, existed eons before we humans as soul-bearing creatures came on the scene, sprouting up from the primordial ooze of a relatively young planet Earth. Yes, there was a part of heaven developed for our kind, but there were other burrows, like the Bronx in New York City, where different flesh-and-blood beings with souls, immigrants from other worlds, transitioned to.
It was not a totally unfamiliar world, though, at least on the lowest level, where we who still used bodies were kept. There were buildings and plants and animals, clouds in a sky, air to breathe, and the warmth and glow of God’s Light on my face but without a sun as I sat quietly on a bench overlooking the rolling waves of what must have been an ocean. I’d crossed over with my entire graduating class, and so missed the usual individual transformation of going through the tunnel of bright white light, being greeted by loved ones who’d already passed, before being welcomed to heaven by Jesus.
We were all given a chance to adjust to our new glorified bodies, and our new home with some time alone before the challenges of our life on the other side began. I was settling in, allowing the euphoria of being in heaven to quiet to an emotion I could handle when I saw a faint figure walking toward me—an image that made me think of Lydia. It was strange, though, because not only did I have this head-on view, I could see her from the sides and behind.
How I remembered that terrible day when she took her own life. How I worried—where is Lydia’s soul? According to what I’d been taught, suicide was one of those unforgivable sins, wasn’t it—so she couldn’t be in heaven, so it couldn’t be her. Then, I vividly recalled the nightmare where I saw Lydia standing before God and being judged for her sin.
In my dream, Lydia was genuinely sorry, and tried to explain why she took her own life. God was sympathetic, but had to insist that she just wouldn’t fit in with souls who valued the life and faith they were given. God, too, was sorry, but when they finished talking, turned her away.
The figure approaching finally got close enough for me to see clearly. Recognizing who it was, I got up and ran to greet her with a hug that I wished could have lasted the rest of eternity!
“Lydia . . . you’re here!”
YOU ARE READING
Hereafter
Teen FictionYou’re about to read Hereafter. Possibly you’ve already read, Maitreya, and may have a sense that the storyline was not pure fiction. Much of the plot was inspired by made-up stories in pop culture, as in the Twilight characters, Bella and Edward, a...
