I've been thinking a lot about Heaven. I've written on the subject before; it seems as though it's been at the forefront of my mind all year, and even more so since Mom died. It just feels like home.
I talk about it a lot, though not nearly as much as I think about it, for fear that those listening will find me morbidly preoccupied with death. In actuality, it is not death with which my thoughts are consumed - it's Heaven. However, if death is the road I must take to get there, that does not frighten me.
Recently, Heaven stopped being an idea and became a real place to me. It is not a state of mind which I will enter after death, but a physical space where actual beings exist. I have never believed that more strongly than I do now. I find myself longing for that place quite frequently. As I said before, it just feels like home.
There were days after Mom died that I didn't think I would survive. There were moments that the pain was so intense that I had trouble breathing. I would go to bed at night and beg Jesus to come back for us. When I would wake up in my bed the next morning, I remember saying to myself, "You just have to survive today. You can worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. You just have to make it through today. And maybe Jesus will come back before tomorrow."
It's almost as if I've felt entitled to enter Heaven now. I've told many friends that I feel old. They usually laugh it off and remind me of how young I am. At 24 years, I know that I am not actually old, but I feel it. I've lived a long life, and it has taken its toll on me. But while it is good and Biblical that my heart longs for the pains of this world to end and be replaced with the unending joys of Heaven, it is not right for me to feel as though I may enter Heaven at my demand just because this life has come with trials.
It's hard to think of wanting to be in Heaven as a bad thing, but it is problematic when the desire for Heaven becomes a distraction from the work believers are called to do on this earth. This is exactly what has happened. I became somewhat hard and bitter since my mom's death. I often felt as though I'd been wronged by God because He took her, and I used my grief as an excuse to live in a less than holy manner. I didn't go to church for several weeks after she died. I had a hard time praying and reading Scripture, because I knew what God had to say to me and I didn't feel ready to hear it. I knew the truth, and I knew I wanted to turn back to it eventually, but unless He was going to do what I wanted Him to do, I just didn't want to hear from Him for a while. I was hurt, and I wanted Him to know it.
I was only hurting myself more, of course. As if God was going to give in to complaints so that He could move on to accomplishing His plans. I was missing the miracle of why my parents are in Heaven, and why I'll be allowed to join them someday. I'd lost the joy of my salvation.
But God, in His goodness, helped me find it. The truth is, no matter how I feel, I have been saved, and my salvation is a miracle. It is God's grace that has made me a citizen of Heaven, and I should always, always be humbled by that fact. One day, I will go home; just maybe not in my preferred time frame.
God still has me on this earth - a fact for which I must be thankful, for it is an honor to know that He will trust me with doing His work for a while longer. If I spend this lifetime wishing I was in the next, I will have wasted the time He's given me. However, there is a way to be satisfied in this life and to hasten the coming of the next. Christ has saved me for a specific purpose - to let others know about the salvation He offers. The more people who know Him, the closer we are to Heaven.
I will experience pain in this world, because it is not Heaven, but I am still responsible to live in a way that reflects my salvation. I am still responsible to praise God for the life He has given me. Because until I make it to Heaven, nothing else on this earth will satisfy.
