"Make the world go away, get it off of my shoulders"...a favorite song from classic "crooner" days.  I suppose the lyrics have resonated with many since through the years.  Most of us can relate to life's challenges.  No matter how rich or poor, easy going or OCD, busy or bored we are, there are difficult days and seasons. I have yet to come up with a way to make the trials and pain of this world disappear.  However, I have found something that comforts my heart in a very broken world.  There is a place of rest and warmth in the friendship of our incredible and loving God.  Physically I can't say that I am "transported" or hear an audible voice when I pray and commune with Him, but when I contemplate the hope He has provided and promised and accept the love poured out through His one Son in order to reconcile our lives and sin before Him, I find rest.  

The older I get, the more aware I become of death.  I don't look forward to the process of death, but I do have an expectation of life forever - without pain or heartache.  What I look forward to was bought for each of us who accept the incredible gift.  It is the hope that is set before me.  And in that hope is comfort. 

Jesus once said that it was the hope set before Him that allowed Him to endure the cross.  It was a horrible death, yet a complete and perfect sacrifice - for you and for me.  Complete in that the finality of death was eliminated.  We will live again.  Oh, we have a choice as to whether it will be a heavenly ever after or a dark,  destructive one.  A critical and crucial choice.  Jesus is the truth, the life and the way.  It is through embracing Him that heaven is offered.  Our hope.  Our joy.  

When I think on those things; when I take hold of that hope; when I snuggle up to the One who offered me life beyond death...I find comfort...peace.  The weight of this world suddenly dims in the light of HIM!  There are two songs I'd like to quote a few words from here:

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Look full in His wonderful face.  And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace." (by Helen H. Lemmel in 1922)

"He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.  When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions, eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are, and how great Your affections are for me."  (by John Mark McMillan)