On Being Very Nearly 47, and Heaven

I'm really looking forward to Heaven. 

This may seem like a terribly morbid thought to be having the day before one's 47th birthday, but it doesn't really feel that way. I'm not depressed, or especially discontent with the state of my no-longer-youthful body, or mired in frustration surrounding family members, home life, or home schooling. This is, in fact, the easiest time of the year for me to feel happy and hopeful with the sun up a full 15 hours and limited school responsibilities to boot. I'm surrounded with blessings on every side, from David's stable employment to a paid-for house to a loving and supportive church community to my valuable and fulfilling role as a homeschool mom and homemaker to parents who are moving closer in to us to really very good health to income sufficient to support hobbies such as crafting for me and dance and taekwondo for the kids. Life is not always easy, but it is overwhelmingly good. 

But Heaven... sounds really good. 

I have been a bit down this week. It's little stuff, some of it stupid little stuff. Some of it not so little. A elderly and disabled friend who was looking at not being able to take a refrigerator delivery because the company that delivers, installs, and hauls away the old one draws the line for some inscrutable reason at unplugging and disconnecting the broken unit. Another friend who's husband is on hospice but might be taken off because he's not getting worse fast enough and who has to spend 3+ hours on the phone with Medicaid per session waiting for someone who turns out not to know the answer to her question after all. (And knowing in my heart of hearts that they make you wait on the phone *because they can* and demoralizing their would-be customers is good for their bottom line because if you just give up and go away and find some other, crappier solution to your impossible problem that saves them the trouble of helping you.) My youngest who I had to counsel to be far more cautious and careful in how she shares her non-politically-correct opinions with her dance friends. A kid who keeps showing up at the church camps who has all the early markings of a predator, but there's no clear path forward to removing him, so the staff just has to watch him really carefully and we have to remind our kids to be careful and I know we're supposed to love and minister to all the kids, but what about our daughters?! My kids picking on and at each other and not being able to figure out what to do with themselves unless a screen is handy. The pretty frosted-glass window at the nearest bus shelter shattered into a zillion pieces on the ground yesterday morning. The gate at the school who's yard we use as a shortcut to walk to the store being locked all summer because they are "keeping us safe" from the construction going on 50 yards away on the roof of said school. The sidewalk blocked by interminable construction at the other end of the neighborhood so we couldn't even get to the store that way. Getting a cold call (from a human, not a computer) wanting to know if I was interested in purchasing a property in NE Portland off Sandy Blvd. A really great detective novel marred by authorial agenda-pushing. The very real possibility we will not be able to fill some critical volunteer slots at Family Camp next month. Grace's frequent, disabling headaches. My own abnormal fatigue and brain fog this week. Moving my parents out of the home I grew up in. Not being able to go on the church camping trip because that's the move weekend. Dad's thinking ahead to Christmas when my oldest niece wants to visit and making sure I am available as a back-up host for her in case he is "dead and dying."

This world is broken. 

So yes, I'm looking forward to all the things that will be missing from Heaven. The big, obvious ones like sickness, sadness, pain, and death. Fear, loneliness, poverty, want. Anger, violence, isolation. And the smaller ones like pronoun arguments, bureaucracy, and ennui.

But it occurred to me last night that the things that Will be in Heaven are also a really big deal to me. Like the personal presence of God Himself.  I know that the good little Christian is supposed to see that as the hands-down most important feature of Heaven, but God also knows I'd be lying if I pretended that my brain was big enough or my spirit holy enough to imagine incomprehensible, ineffable awesomeness of that fact. Honestly, it just kind of shuts down - even shies away from it. Even after watching The Chosen. But it Is big enough to imagine a lot of other great things. Like reunions with old friends and relatives who left us. Like being able to sing for a couple hundred years in perfect harmony around the perfect bonfire (if we need such things), composing new songs that would make Beethoven weep as we go along. Like spending a few more hundred years learning to paint like Rembrandt - better than Rembrandt! Sculpt, build, sew, tell stories, hear stories, write, read, play music on instruments no-one has ever heard of, explore mountains, forests, and impossibly deep ocean floors that no-one ever conceived of. Run, dance, swim, probably even fly forever. All of this without ever having to question our own motives or anyone else's, because we're no longer able to Have wrong motives or Want wrong things. Being able to grow, to learn, to create without stint or measure. Without time management. Without resource constraints. Without fear. Without "No's." With, in fact, an eternal "Yes!"

And because I can't imagine all that will be without coming back to what won't be any longer, All of this will be without ever having to deal with a glory-hog, a power-grabber, a sarcastic or snide person, someone who misunderstands you or your intents, a womanizer, a man-killer, a pervert, a fool, a petty or querulous or manipulative or distracted or anxious person - even when (especially when) that person is you.  

 CS Lewis says in "Mere Christianity:"

If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.

I've felt that more and more over the past few years, maybe even especially the past few months. Yes, the pandemic is largely behind us. There's no immediate crisis. We've been given a little space to breathe. But as things approach "normalcy," or what has always passed for it in my experience anyway, somehow the stuff that is still broken seems even worse. I don't want to sound ungrateful for the uncountable blessings I have and am still experiencing here on this earth. But if they're all there is... well, to quote Paul this time "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (1 Cor 15:19)

So I think we're allowed to be sad about what is wrong. I think it's correct to yearn for our eventual perfection. And it's OK to spend the eve of your 47th birthday looking forward to Heaven.