We call really tall buildings skyscrapers because they are so high up they seem to scrape the sky. But in actuality, there is no hard limit that separates the sky from the ground. Technically every time that we walk around we are ourselves scraping the sky. We don't typically think that even when our feet are firmly planted on the ground we have the sky all around us but it is true. The sky, or, the heavens, as we sometimes call it, is all around us all the time. Yes it is way up high where the birds fly and the clouds roll, but it is also millimeters above the dirt where ants crawl and rivers flow. Even if we build walls and a roof around us, we are even then a part of the sky. It is the same with our Heavenly Father. Yes, just as the sun and the moon and stars billions of light-years away are all a part of the sky, so too it is accurate to picture our Heavenly Father's dwelling place as equally distant. But as we have established, even if the sky includes galaxies far, far away it also is close enough to reach out and grab or to breathe into our lungs twenty thousand times a day. Even if God’s throne is in some completely different dimension, He is also all around us every second of every day no matter where we are. We don't have to climb a mountain or jump out of an airplane to be in the sky. Even when we are face down in the dirt or at the bottom of a pit, we are still a part of the sky and the sky is a part of us. We don't have to be in church or the temple or travel to some sacred place to be near to God. Jonah felt God's love in the belly of the whale. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were with God in the middle of a burning furnace. Some of the most poignant and meaningful words ever given to Joseph Smith were while he was locked up in a prison. I hope that we can all remember that God is much, much closer than we think and that there does not exist a place in this Universe where we can go that He is not already there, ready to help and to heal and to guide and to save us.
