CONVERSATIONS WITH JEFFREY #3

SPACED OUT!

“Oh Grandma, weren't you glad when Daddy said we could stay one more day in Florida so we could go to the Kennedy Space Center? I liked the fishing at the Pier and those monster rides at Busch Gardens—those upside down and scary straight-drop-down roller coaster cars—and the Grand Prix race car I drove myself, but Cape Canaveral was the coolest!”

“Jeffrey, just watching you and Daddy on those rides almost gave me a heart attack! But I agree that the Space Center was the best.”

“I couldn’t believe how BIG the space shuttles are, and how high the tower is for the launches. And the g-force simulator with the vertical launch made me feel like a real astronaut in space. We were strapped in and heard and saw things like they did.”

“How did you feel when you actually touched a rock that had been brought back from the moon? I’m glad I took a picture of you with your hand on it. And that other picture with your face showing in the helmet of an astronaut figure!”

“And we sat in the same theater looking down at the actual Mercury Mission Control consoles that they used for the Apollo 8 launch! They were the first three men ever to make a trip to the moon."

"That was more than 30 years before you were born, Jeffrey. Do you remember what year that was and the names of those men?”

“Yup. They were Borman, Lovell, and Anders in 1968. You told me to memorize that when we came in on the bus!”

“Good job! And now that the Apollo Space program is completed, what is the name of the new venture into space?”

“Constellation!”

“You got it again! I guess you have a lot to tell your classmates at school.”

“How about when we sat in the IMAX theater? That was the first time I was in one of those 3D special effects places. When I put the plastic glasses on, it was like I was really right there climbing out of the space ship, walking and jumping around on the moon in slow motion with the space guys.”

“You like the zero gravity stuff, huh Jeffrey? Isn’t it sort of like when you are swimming in the water? Weightless? Remember how the astronauts couldn’t judge distance because there wasn’t any atmosphere? They didn’t know how far away anything was or how deep were the valleys. That would sure give you a funny feeling, wouldn’t it?”

“I’d like to look through that Hubble Space Telescope and see deep into space and discover things in the Universe that no one has ever seen before. If the Universe just goes on and on where does God live, Grandma? Where is heaven?”

“There are lots of things we don’t know and I guess God figured we didn’t need to know so that we’d be surprised. Jesus didn’t tell us details about where He lived when He was with God or what it was like there. He left heaven, wherever it is, to come down to earth and become a human being. We call that by a big word: ‘incarnation’. He was born as a baby from Mary, His mother, but God was His father. You remember the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke in the Bible? He grew like everyone else and went through childhood, was a teenager, and grew to be a man. But all the while He was both the Son of God and a human being. It is hard to understand, but it’s true. It’s what we call….”

“…a mystery, right?”

“You remembered! After the people who didn’t believe in Jesus killed Him on the cross, and after He came alive again three days later, He appeared over and over again to His special followers and also to 500 people at once the Bible says. But His body was changed now. He could walk right through closed doors or walls. But He could still eat and talk and teach His followers. He could disappear and appear somewhere else. He could go instantly from one place to another. And when He was ready to return to heaven, gravity didn’t hold Him—He did a ‘lift-off’ just like a space ship, but He didn’t need a space suit, oxygen, rocket jet fuel for the thrust or anything that our astronauts have to have.”

“Wow! I’d like to do that!”

“I expect that you will since you have Jesus in your heart and the Holy Spirit in you and you are one of God’s children. It says in the Bible, in a letter that His follower John wrote, 1 John 3:2, ‘Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.’ And Jesus also said that when He left the earth, He was going to prepare a place for us. So He’ll see to it that each of us will be changed into a special kind of body like His so we can be fit to live in heaven’s atmosphere.”

“That will be a whole lot better than wearing all the heavy equipment and space suit and carrying stuff the astronauts need just to survive in space. But Grandma, in heaven will I still be me, Jeffrey, when I am a Jesus-space-person? Will I recognize you and all the other people there?”

“From what God has revealed to us, the answer is YES! We’ll still know each other and have our own I.D. Jesus calls us by our name. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of other Jeffreys there may ever be in this world, God knows exactly who you are and you will always be you forever and ever. Only 12 people have ever walked on the moon. Now it's empty, deserted. But in heaven there will be room for all the people on earth through all the ages from creation who have loved God. And God will know exactly who is who. Do you know how long people were able to stay on the moon so far?”

“I guess they couldn’t survive very long. Maybe about 3 days or something like that?”

“You are close—it was 76 hours altogether. Not very long. But we will be with Jesus for all eternity! Time will not count anymore. And we’ll never get tired of being surprised by all the spectacular things God is showing us or allowing us to discover, and the exciting things we can do there and in all the universes in space. It will be a lot better than just looking through the Hubble Telescope. What we saw on IMAX is nothing compared to the wonders we will experience in heaven!”

“I guess we won’t be visitors there like we were at Kennedy Space Center. It will be like….”

“It will be like HOME, Jeffrey, a place to settle. We'll be home with Jesus and all the friends and family who have loved Him!”

# END