What's to come

I was reading Erin's blog called "My religious Questions". Some of them got me to thinking. There was an interesting point she made. She said:
"But what concerns me the most is the people I love, who don't believe in God. When it comes to eternity, I am not going to be happy knowing that there are people who had major roles in my life, not in that other lovely place."

I remember when I first moved back out to Langley after I graduated. I got to hang out with those friends that I had to leave behind again. One of them was a very strong Christian. I remember the comment she made one day. I lost my dad to a brain aneurysm when I was five years old. One thing that I always held onto was the fact that one day I may get to see him again. Until this girl said something that tore my world apart.
We were all out roller blading at a skate park. We were talking about religion for some reason. She had told me that if you didn't believe that Jesus Christ was your savior then you were going to hell and you will not get to go to Heaven. I looked at her and said, "so does that mean that my dad is in Hell?" She said yes. I was really bad and chose to call her a really choice name and skated off and wanted to leave right away.
To this day I wonder if I will ever get to see my dad again. You see, my dad was not a Christian, didn't believe in God. So does that mean that he is in hell? I tend to believe that is not true. I have to have the faith that he is there in heaven waiting for me. Seeing me grow. Waiting to see his little girl again.
The thing that makes me believe this is that I don't know what he said before he died. I don't know if he called out for God to take him home. If he reached for God in his last minutes, with his last breath. I don't know if he actually believed in God in his heart.
It hurts to think that those we love may not be in heaven. That they may not get to go there. One thing that I have come to understand is that we don't know until we get there. Until we walk through those gates into our saviors arms and He leads us. We don't know if on their death beds they renounced Christ. That they reached out for Him. We don't know that even though people may say that they don't believe that they may believe deep within their soul. We will not know until we get there. All we can do is pray for those that don't believe and try our hardest to show them God's word.
I have to believe that I will see my dad again one day. I need to. Only God knows though. I am just happy to know that I will go to heaven and so will so many others. My husband and my closest friends.
My mom doesn't believe in God as far as I know. But I don't know what is in her heart. So there are many times that I will actualy say something along the lines about God. She was upset one time knowing that her mom didn't know that she had forgiven her. I told her that it was ok. God knew that she had forgiven her and we knew that she had forgiven her. If she didn't we wouldn't have turned out the way we did. I told her that God sees her heart. I made her cry (oops) and she asked me when her baby girl got so wise. I told her that I am not all that wise, that I just know that God sees and knows all. That He is there and He loves us. He knows our heart. I think she believes and she listens to what I say. Although we never have had that great of a relationship I love her and I believe that one day she may come to Christ. I can only pray.
That is all we can do. Pray. Like I said, we need to believe because we don't know what is in other peoples hearts. We need to believe that our Father will lead them home. We need to have the faith. Don't turn away from what we know, just try to bring others to Him.
Good post Erin. Got me thinking.