As I was making my lunch today, I felt as if I should make a hash mark . . . one meal down, who knows how many more to go! Like a prisoner counting off his days. It's not that I do not enjoy this life, and take full advantage of it, thanking God for every day and every good thing He gives me, it's just that I yearn-long-ache for the days when I won't have any anxieties about the future, about my health, about getting old; all that to say that I do so look forward to Heaven, when love's purest joys will be restored. This is not my home. It never has been and never will be. I can paint it the color I want, and decorate it, and make dear friends on earth, but "my citizenship is in Heaven." Jesus paid for my passport with His blood, and I look forward to the day when I will turn it in to Him in Heaven, and will need it no more.
Meannwhile, back on earth, I give my fears and anxieties to God, and His name calms my fears and bids my sorrows cease.
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3 comentarios:
Thank you for the post. Very timely.
Don't worry about getting old. Just look at me and see what good worrying has done. You'd be appalled if you met me.
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory!
J.
I am undecided as to whether I think the tone of your post is despairing and careworn or attached and conflicted. I'm guessing both?
For despair I only hope you can be distracted for a time, with music, good company, literature, physical work, laughter and silliness, or change of scenery - until it passes. Emotions don't last. Troubles last, yes. But emotions, tricky as they are, die out - and troubles become bearable. Despair passes into timely rest. Sometimes it rages first and our last resort is a blind clinging to a pole in the wind remembering, as hair and rain whip our face, that we can and must hold on until the end. And it passes.
If I may be so personal on your blog, my own struggles are with the latter (not to say there are only these two options...). I tend toward a greedy hoarding love of the beautiful world God has put me in. My fears and anxieties are neatly built up and around this world, these people of all the earth who are mine, or so it feels. And it is my duty to love these children, this man; my pleasure as well. But I ever work to know they are not mine but God's children. Submitting to this is my comfort. Not submitting to this is my torture.
But whatever bids you to make a hashmark after a meal, my God grant you relief from it. May God give you strength in your trials and comfort in the knowledge that He is restoring all things, including our flesh which was created good and will again be good.
Forgive the length. It's late where I am and so my editing is cut short. (heehee) Uh-oh, now I'm getting silly.
neetm
"Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." ~ CS Lewis
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