It May take a Spirit without a Body to Prepare for an Eternal Body

   I wonder if our judgment would be somewhat impossible if we were to remain in our mortal bodies. I wonder if we must leave our physical bodies -- and be left as spirits only -- in order to be judged.

  If this is a truth, I feel almost to tears to be allowed to learn it.

 We are told that judgment will come in the hereafter. We are told that every knee will bow, and every tongue confess. I believe I have been taught we will judge ourselves, to some degree. Perhaps that is what is meant by every knee will bow and every tongue confess. I do not know.

   I have learned -- or at least it is my observation and, and it does seem to be so -- that our guilt can be so strong, it can kill us. And, I have learned that the passage of time usually allows us to forget our shortcomings.

   But if guilt can drive a person to death, that is the death of the physical body. It might anguish our souls, but the soul is eternal and doesn't die. I think of how I have been taught that there will be a period between death and entering a kingdom when we will be in a hell, suffering for our sins. This fits in with what I am saying: While we are are in our spirits -- having shed our bodies -- those spirits are open to the buffetings of guilt. The body would die under such pressure, but it is gone, and the spirit is allowed to be buffeted by the guilt. 

   The mortal body is accompanied by decline, and that includes the loss of memory. I do not know that our spirits, when alone, retain knowledge better, but I wonder if this is so. Time heals all wounds? The mortal body soon lets go of the memory of its sins, but the spiritual body has no such comfort. A little hell is inflicted.

   As I have thought about my own shortcomings -- ones so painful I can see how they could bring me to death  -- I have also observed that there can be health in facing them. It is a tender balance, but if I face my shortcomings, and put them in an eternal perspective of being things God will prepare a way for me to escape, then it is peace to my soul. I wonder if there is not even a rejuvenating influence in facing our faults this way. Faults that we do not accept, canker. But, faults we acknowledge and place before God for his assistance -- there no longer is reason for them to canker. There no longer is reason for them to bring us to death.

   If guilt kills, and we remove the guilt, then the body is no longer subject to death from that guilt. I wonder, then, if this is part of how the resurrection is brought to pass -- if it is part of the science behind it. I think yet again on the phrase that every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess. Acknowledging our faults may be necessary in order to be resurrected. The eternal body might be able to live with the shortcomings, because it has accepted them and placed them in Christ's care.
   These are thoughts I have. I do not know that they are true. Maybe I'm all wrong. Or, maybe some of them are off and some of them are on. At any rate, I think it not wrong to ponder and to wonder.