A Beauty Glorious

If you saw me on the street, chances are you’d see me walking around with a bounce in my step and the hint of a silly little grin on my mouth. If you watched me being by myself, you might hear a random little giggle from time to time. I know, I’m a dork, but I think I’ve figured something out. Life is both beautiful and painful, but through it all there is a reason to smile. Why would I say such a thing?

Because this life is not the point.

This is my secret: I am not of this world.

I know you’ve seen that phrase before—on T-shirts, on car windows, on keychains, on Bible covers. It’s everywhere in the Christian community these days. It’s become cliché. But, as with most clichés, it’s so common because it’s true.

I do not belong to this world! I’m just passing through. I know who I am and I know where I’m going. Earth is not my final destination. I am able to go through life with a smile on my face and a song in my soul because I know that my citizenship lies somewhere greater.

That’s what occupies my thoughts. It’s the reaching for that country that thrills me through every bone.

I may live in a house in Suburbia, California. I may wear clothes purchased at Target. I may breathe Earth’s oxygen and eat Earth’s food, but it’s all an illusion. It’s real enough for the time being, but someday I will look back and laugh at how brief and thin it was.

Paul wrote, “What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) That’s what I’m fully expecting it to be like. When I wake up in heaven, I expect to see a world far more vibrant and alive and real than anywhere on Earth. (Twilight fans—remember Bella’s very new experience in Breaking Dawn? Yep. I’m thinking a lot like that.)

Here’s the deal: this planet is not my home. I was created to long for something more. C. S. Lewis captured it perfectly in The Last Battle:

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

In this new Narnia that the characters found, the fruit was sweeter, the mountains were taller, and even the colors were brighter. It was all far more REAL than the place they had come from. All the old limits were gone. They could swim straight up thundering waterfalls, and the water wasn’t even cold.

That’s what I want. When I get to heaven, I want to dance through the clouds and swim up waterfalls and run a lap around the universe holding Jesus’ hand, screaming and laughing like maniacs all the way. I get the giggles every time I think about it.

Imagine…I’m going to sing in perfect harmony with all the angels and spend forever (and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever) hanging out with GOD. This is my deepest longing and my greatest hope.

Tee-hee. :P