“Earth-is-not-my-home,” I said, my voice choppy and robotic; my best alien imitation. Imitations aren’t really my thing, but this one escaped my mouth before I even recognized it. My friend wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes as she laughed at the pathetic extraterrestrial encounter she was witnessing on the other side of the FaceTime call.
After the final giggles had slipped through our lips like adolescents passing crumpled notes in the back of a classroom, we decided on the theme of our new bracelets. We would purchase matching leather bracelets with a simple phrase engraved to grip our wrists and remind us of eternity.
“Earth is not heaven.”
Wow, that is so groundbreaking, Erinn. Earth shattering, really.
Let me explain.
First of all, I’m glad my friend decided on swapping out “my home” for “heaven.” It just has a nice ring to it and sounds a little more angelic. I also concluded that if I was unconscious on the side of the road being treated by EMTs, they wouldn’t take one glance at the bracelet phrase and write me off as some psycho who openly, and delusionally, proclaimed that earth was not her home. And yes, I usually prefer my examples to be extreme where I’m unconscious or on the verge of a gory death.
After we placed our bracelet orders, waited impatiently for them to arrive, and snapped them on our wrists, I realized that the snickering we gave the one phrase wasn’t too far off from how the world would view even our more elegant word choice. Earth is not heaven. We needed the reminder that our time on earth is temporary. Not as a flimsy crutch to help us wobble a little easier through trials and suffering on earth, but to remind us that with the suffering and the joy, this earth is not our place to wholly invest in and get comfortable. It’s not the basket in which all our eggs should be placed, if you get what I’m saying.
This means the good and the bad. The beautiful pink flowers that wave to me from the slender branches of the trees along my back deck, or the smell of fresh bread as it exits the oven, or the ocean that sparkles under just the right spotlight of the sun. The squirmy pudgy babies, or the family around the dinner table, or the one you stood before the altar committing your life to. All of that. That is not heaven.
It’s easy to think of the horrific cancer diagnoses, the betrayals that squeeze and twist your insides, the tragic deaths that steal lives almost before they even begin, and the list of life’s unending sorrows as unheavenly. It’s much easier to label that list as such. Of course most would agree that that part of life on earth is not heaven.
So, if earth is not heaven, nor is it my home, then what’s left? We cling to the fact that we are citizens of heaven. My friend and I studied Philippians 3:20. “But we are citizens of heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.”
We are citizens of heaven. Basically, I realized that I don’t want to get the birthday blues from my life here on earth. You know, where you have these grand expectations of everyone remembering your special day, the gifts will be exactly what has been sitting in your Amazon cart, the cake will nostalgically remind you of the cake you had at your fifth birthday party, and the day will be like a slice of perfection tucked into a normal week. Not so much. It never quite happens that way, hence the term, “birthday blues.”
If I view life on earth as the place of my joy, comfort, purpose and meaning, then I’ll end each day with that nagging tug in my heart that something just isn’t quite right. I don’t want that. I’m not saying to shove all expectations to the side and view life here as meaningless and a game of chasing the wind; although, my mind does wander to that corner often.
Whether I’m blissfully wrapped up in a beautiful moment in life or hunched over on the floor wondering why God hasn’t answered my cry, glancing at that leather bracelet reminds me that earth is not heaven. I was never supposed to be genuinely and completely satisfied here. That was never the deal.
When I remember that heaven is what we have to look forward to, it’s a reminder that this isn’t it. This isn’t the end of the road. Whether the path is rocky enough to cause whiplash and make you wish the ride would just stop or it’s smooth and full of sights you never want your eyes to stop seeing, it gets even better.
Alien jokes aside, I think that’s pretty cool.
