What's on YOUR Bulletin Board?

The receipt of a pretty card from author Deborah Raney in Kansas (whom I deeply admire for her garage sale hunting and home decorating skills almost as much as for her books) prompted me to contemplate my bulletin board. The one with the twisted frame. It hangs flush to the wall across the top, but its bottom right corner sticks out two centimeters from the wall. Every time I pin something to it, the whole shebang tries to hit the floor. I’ve become adept at catching it.

I betcha Deborah Raney would never hang a warped bulletin board in her house.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their bulletin board. Well, okay, maybe “they” don’t say that. I’m saying it. I wonder what my warped one says about me.

If I care to wax philosophical, I can see that everything on my bulletin board fits into one of three categories: organization, encouragement, and inspiration. In the organizing category fall two things. The wildlife calendar came from author/photographer/singer, Sally Meadows in Saskatchewan. Next to it, I’ve pinned a flow-chart I created to guide myself on how to manage limited writing time so as not to miss a deadline. It’s brilliant and I should probably follow it.

In the encouragement category hang two actual hand-written cards of appreciation that arrived in the actual mail from actual readers, both senior citizens. (Not because my readers are all senior citizens, I tell myself, but because senior citizens are the only people who still hand-write anything.) I treasure those cards.

The top left corner features a certificate of congratulations from our member of parliament, the Honourable Candice Bergen, on the release of my first novel. It even has one of those fancy gold seals like the kind I frequently use at my city hall job. Except Ms. Bergen managed to stick hers on straight.

Near the top right hangs a card I received from my daughter years ago that still makes me laugh and comes in handy when decision-making. It features a vintage black and white photo of a lady dressed in finery, about to deliberately step off a curb into a mud puddle. The caption says:

Ever notice that "what the hell" is always the right decision?

It’s a quote from an unknown Hollywood scriptwriter, so that should tell us something.

In the inspiration category hang quotes from the prophet Isaiah and from Max Lucado, and now, the card from Deb Raney.

One of my favorite items, though, is a place card that says, “Reserved for Terrie Todd.” At a writer’s conference in 2013, I was invited to sit at author Jerry B. Jenkin’s lunch table. (He’s written hundreds of books, among them the bestselling Left Behind series.) I earned the privilege in a writing contest, but I keep the place card to remind me of another, far more important meal yet to come. A place is reserved for me there too, but I did not earn this one. Jesus bought it for me, with his life. It’s called the marriage supper of the Lamb and you can read about it in the book of Revelation. There’s a seat for you, too. Have you replied?

On good days, that special reminder calls me to do my best and make my time on this planet count for something. On difficult days, it serves to remind me there are far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.

What’s on your bulletin board?

I Can Only Imagine

Easter’s over, but no series on mortality would be complete without a few words about Heaven.

Our planet recently lost two prominent citizens. Reverend Billy Graham died on February 21, and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking on March 14. How could two such brilliant minds have held such opposing views on the afterlife? Compare these statements:

Hawking: “We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is: there is no God. No one created our universe, and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

Graham: “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

Was one of these men completely wrong, or is the truth somewhere in the middle? How can we know? It’s been one of the top questions of humankind since our beginning. It’s the reason people are drawn to mediums who claim they communicate with the spirits of the departed. It’s what makes songs like Mercy Me's I Can Only Imagine and the movie behind it so popular. It’s why we’re so fascinated by those who’ve had near-death experiences (NDEs). We want to know. We want assurance that something better awaits us, or at least nothing far worse.

Books about people who’ve had NDEs abound, and their stories share too much in common for us to dismiss. One of the most powerful I’ve read is by Dr. Eben Alexander, a highly trained neurosurgeon who firmly believed NDEs are fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress—until he experienced one himself. For seven days, Alexander lay in a coma with the part of his brain that controls all thought and emotion shut down completely. His recovery is a medical miracle, but the real miracle lies in the journey he took during that time, through a sphere where neither time nor place mean anything.

Before he underwent his journey, Dr. Alexander could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. Today, he is a doctor who believes true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real, and death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition. In his book, Proof of Heaven, he tells the story of meeting and speaking with the Divine source of the universe itself. He says it is the hardest story to tell, because our limited language has no words for what he experienced.

Delta Beach, not Heaven. Not even close.

This falls in line with the words of Jesus’ disciple, John, who received a glimpse into Heaven and recorded everything in the book of Revelation. The book is difficult to understand because it was difficult to write. We have no words.

My favorite promise of John’s, though, is from Revelation 21:4-8: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away…”

There’s more, and I hope you’ll look it up for yourself. It’s why we sing with great gusto one of my favorite songs, Come as You Are by Crowder. The best line? “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can’t heal.”

We can only imagine.