Longing for Heaven

Do you ever have those days where your longing for the permanence and perfection of heaven is so strong you can barely handle it? Days where the taint of sin and its consequences seem to pervade the very air you breathe? Days where you know that what your heart pains for was once granted in the Garden but our loss of it now leaves us with a longing for that which seems forever out of reach? Today is one of those days.

It was the last day of classes at HOPAC and Christmas break has now officially arrived. While this causes many to embrace new dance moves and leaps of joy, it somehow strikes a different chord in my soul. Today I hugged Shaun and sent him forth with a prayer to a Hindu family that places its emphasis on money rather than their son. Today, I said goodbye to a child who will be going back to his country of origin for one year for his missionary family's furlough.

And finally, today I have also watched one of my compound sisters leave this place to reunite with her family for the next two weeks, and in a matter of an hour, I will be watching another depart to do the same. Now, I know this may seem ridiculous to you, my dear readers, but I must admit that after living, working, and hanging out with these five wonderful ladies almost 24/7 for four months now, I have come to the realization that our interactions and relationships might feel akin to being married to 5 different people! :-) I, as well as others, constantly give to God the struggles of different perspectives and experiences, personality differences, misunderstandings, anger, and frustration that I'm told you also have to give God numerous times in a marriage, no matter how godly. We have struggled through issues of directness, reconciliation, openness and love, and have shared and wrestled through our own personal issues with each other as we witness the ways that our own weaknesses and experiences come out in our day-to-day interactions and perceptions. With all of this said, the good and the bad have led to strong relationships of deep affection and care.

And it is in this place and these events that the longing for heaven is displayed in me today...

I know that the Bible says we are pilgrims and that this world will never be too comfortable, easy, or consistent because it is not our home. I must admit that when I read this I think: As much as I love being a pilgrim because of the different experiences and great variety of people I have the opportunity to meet, sometimes I loathe it simultaneously. It feels as though I go through life leaving pieces of my heart with all of the people I have grown to love with the affection of Christ. I may move on to other places and people, but there's a part of me that has been forever gifted to the hearts and lives of those I leave behind. There's a pain that comes with the temporality of this world and its relationships. It's not easy to start over and invest anew, to continually share your heart, experiences, and stories with a new face every year or two, and to move on without caving in to a need for consistent updates of the events, struggles, and joys of all those whose lives have been previously intertwined with your own. There is a difficult revelation in the fact that some relationships, no matter how good, are only for a time in this world. I long for the day when we will all be together forever in eternity, free of that ache that comes from departing one whom you love in the Lord. Someday... Until then, may He help us to embrace the corresponding joy and pain set before us as we dive into relationships limited by time so that we will not miss the blessing of either beauty or suffering. May we know, as Christians, that goodbye is not forever and that eternity together with Christ is our inheritance. May God bless and protect us as we are absent one from another and may He give us the grace, strength, and joy to live lives of perpetual "hellos" and "goodbyes".

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage..." (Psalm 84: 5)