Tonight around 8:00 found me sitting at Panera Bread Company, enjoying a yummy orchard harvest salad and potato soup. (Thanks to Heather H. for the Panera gift card ... a much-enjoyed present. :-D) As I enjoyed my meal, I had open a book I had checked out from the library, Randy Alcorn's Heaven.

Just thought I'd share a few quotes from that book that really refreshed and encouraged me. :o)
[Oh yeah - I also mixed in C.S. Lewis and some others. :o)]

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
-- C.S. Lewis

"Desire is a signpost pointing to Heaven. Every longing for better health is a longing for the New Earth. Every longing for romance is a longing for the ultimate romance with Christ. Every desire for intimacy is a desire for Christ. Every thirst for beauty is a thirst for Christ. Every taste of joy is but a foretaste of a greater and more vibrant joy than can be found on Earth as it is now."
--Randy Alcorn, from his book "Heaven"

"If we build our lives on the redemptive work of Christ, we should all be optimists. Why? Because even our most painful experience in life is but a temporary setback. Our pain and suffering may or may not be relieved in this life, but they will certainly be relieved in the next. Anticipating Heaven doesn't eliminate pain, but it lessens it and puts it into perspective. Meditating on Heaven is a great pain reliever. It reminds us that suffering and death are temporary conditions. Our existence will not end in suffering and death--they are but a gateway to our eternal life of unending joy.
Don't place your hope in favorable circumstances, which cannot and will not last. Place your hope in Christ and His promises. He will return, and we will be resurrected to life on the New Earth, where we will behold God's face and joyfully serve Him forever."
--Randy Alcorn, from his book "Heaven"

"This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country; this world of woe is but the stepping stone to a world of bliss."
--Charles Spurgeon

"I take it to be a biblical truth that the more earnest we are about fulfilling our mission ... reaching unreached peoples ... exposing the darkness ... loosing the bonds of Satan and of sin ... the more earnest and zealous we are in being the Church, being Christ to this world, the more we will suffer like He did."
--John Piper

"Your purse is not a good place for BUGS."
--David B. (my four-year-old nephew)

Your prayers are appreciated! Somehow I have been really, really tired today ... and more tired than usual lately in general. I need strength! I know the Lord is able to do that. :-) I am probably going to try to go to bed really, really early tonight ...

I am going this weekend to visit my parents and a good friend back home and very excited about that! My mom has already informed me that I will be doing most of the cooking while I'm there. :-D (She knows I don't mind because I love to cook!)

God is good ... whether I'm sleepy or strengthy. Hee hee ... so that wasn't a very good rhyme but then after all I'm - you guessed it - sleepy. ;oP But praise God that His abundant strength shines all the more brightly in our weakness! (2 Corinthians 12:9!)

I look forward to posting a praise report tomorrow of how the Lord has strengthened me and brought me joy. :o)