Dear God:

With all due respect, I would like to speak freely, and thanks for the opportunity to do so.

This won't take long, in accord with the verse quoted above.

After careful study of your Holy Bible, with much intensive and exhaustive research therein, I have come to the conclusive realization that none of us are going to be "raptured" alive without entering the portal of death. Even those saints who will be living more than a thousand years from now, when the heavens and earth are instantly dissolved in fervent heat, will, in a sense, experience that equivalent of being fatally and lethally vaporized at ground zero in a nuclear explosion.

Don't get my wrong: I know that there will be resurrection of the Two Witnesses mentioned in the Apocalypse and of the beast-rejecting beheaded at your Second Coming at Armageddon as it states in Corinthians, Thessalonians, and particularly in the book of Revelation chapter 20.

But I do not know how I, nor my dear wife, nor everyone else on planet Earth at the present time, am going to die. I have seen others, like my parents, die a somewhat slow death in what I think was somewhat prolonged misery -- within a month at most, during the last week, and especially last few days and hours of their life.

Please cause my death to be immediate and as painless as possible. The same for my wife. Please.

That having been said - and hoped for - I would like to express my thoughts about being resurrected in the near or distant future, and given the type of eternal supernatural body that you had after your resurrection from the dead around two thousand years ago, and about me living on forever throughout eternity.

The new body thing is, of course, great. Wonderful. Indescribably terrific: to be able to go in and out of whatever realms of existence (both natural and supernatural) at my whims; to be indestructible, in the sense of being immortal and continuously rejuvenated no matter what...no experience of death anymore...to do phenomenal things I have always dreamed of doing, and have the time to do them. And FAR more that I have not even thought of in your new creation of new heavens and a new earth.

Not a problem.

What concerns me is living on forever.

Now I realize that the state in which I will be living on eternally will be vastly different than what it lamentably and deplorably is in my present circumstances: beset and besieged with horrendous and despicable sin of the sinful immoral majority, their snide, accusatory, vicious, defiling, terroristic evil; the constant relentless harassment they impose; devious and diabolical temptations from them and theirs; and consequently the potential and actualization from such causing me disappointment, grief, and pain from mild to excruciating.

It would indeed be incredibly disgusting and obnoxious to live forever under those conditions, as you (I am sure) readily understand. You would a damnable sadistic despot to force us to exist eternally under such non-wanted non-asked-for oppressive tyranny, deserving only to be incessantly cursed with the vilest and most repulsive of expletives. As you recall, even you, Jesus, experienced much of those disgusting things up to and through the time you were crucified to death.

I know, obviously, that it will be good to forever be in your holy presence, to gaze upon you with wonderment and worship you as I have always wanted to (without welling up with tears of reverence and respect), to studiously be captivated and mesmerized by your omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent infiniteness, impeccable awesome consistency, to be in joyous fellowship with my saved and redeemed back-in-their-youthful-prime parents, grandparents, a huge host of saints I have known and loved, along with those great giants of faith and innovation who I have only heard about in past history.

It almost goes without saying that I fully intend to worship you in glory with my might, without ever wearing out nor getting tired, but expressing my praise creatively in ways I have always wished and in fabulous ways I haven't even thought of yet.

But to think that I will live FOREVER in my glorified body.

My initial reaction is: how arrogant to assume that I will be doing that God-like thing!

But, I take comfort in that I will have nothing to say about it. It will be your doing, and I won't be able to make it happen or not make it happen. It will be your immutable will and desire. So I take comfort in that.

And I take comfort in your Authority to do that.

In my present mortal state, I can sort of comprehend the thought of eternal existence without end, but it only goes so far, being that I (in my present state) cannot (by far) go too far in trying to fathom eternity. To presumptively do so would inevitably result in me becoming catatonically immobile in paralyzed stupor.

Again, to me in my mortal condition, to contemplate having no end, no relief, no culmination, no termination, is kind of obnoxious because ever since I became consciously aware of things as a small toddler my whole life has consisted of experiencing start and stop, beginning and ending, with measurement in between...but I realize that the conditions under which I will exist in eternal glory and profound reverence and ecstatic bliss will make eternity absolutely non-boring and quite acceptable, including having my mind changed to appreciate eternity without end.

And then there is the concept of you having no beginning.

Again, in my current mortal state, that to me is rather obnoxious. But as it states in Scripture: "we shall all be changed." That's good. And fortunate.

I realize that you will transform my mind to be able to appreciate eternity in both directions - forward and backwards before and outside of all time, and I want to express my appreciation ahead of time to you for that.

Please be aware that I cannot fully understand you as God having no authority above you, because I have been born into and have always existed in a world where not only I myself but everyone I know of has always had some authority over them.

But there is no authority over you, which is difficult - if not impossible - to imagine and really appreciate.

But I take comfort in your Authority to having done, doing now, and intending to do all that you have described in your Bible. It is because of your Authority that I am at peace and am content. And know that I will be quite content forever because of that.