By Ann Farabee

My family and I were coming home from a trip when I got the call that a close friend was in the last hours of her earthly life. When I arrived outside her hospital room door, I was told by family members and her nurse that her eyes had been fixed on the top corner of the room all day and she had not responded to anyone. They all said that she had been waiting on me. As I walked in and whispered her name, she fleetingly glanced my direction before looking back to that corner of the room that had her fixated.

I knew immediately what was going on — angels were in the room. They had come to usher her home.

Still whispering, I asked her, “You see Jesus, don’t you?”

Her eyes did not move, but for a fleeting second, I felt a faint squeeze of her hand in mine. With tears of grief and love in my eyes, I was amazed that God was allowing me to be with her in this moment. My whispering continued,“You see angels don’t you? They are in that corner, aren’t they?” She blinked.

“Go!” I said. “Go to Jesus. The angels came to get you!”

Her trip from earth to heaven was in its final moments and I could feel the thickness of the presence of the Holy Spirit filling the hospital room. Her day of eternal healing was here, and she would be crossing the bridge between earth and heaven at any moment. It almost felt as if I would be going with her, but I knew I had gone as far across that bridge with her as earth would allow at this moment in time.

This was her day to become a citizen of heaven. This was her day to go to the Father’s house, and her day to be seated in heavenly places.

Her earthly breathing — which had been labored for several days — stopped.

But the breath of God remained, filling every corner of the room and ushering in the sweet savor of our Savior’s love, grace and mercy that we could never even begin to understand.

She was gone. She was now with Jesus — her Lord and Savior.

According to 2 Timothy 1:10, death has been abolished by Jesus. John 14:2 says when we die, we will go to the Father’s house.

Acts 7:56 says, we will go to be with Jesus at the right hand of God, and according to Ephesians 2:6, He has raised us up where we will sit in heavenly places. Philippians 1:21 says that for us to live is Christ and to die is gain.

According to Philippians 3:20, we will be citizens of heaven, Philippians 3:21 says Jesus will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body, and 2 Corinthians 5:8 says absence from the body means being present with the Lord.