The New Earth

My sister’s house burned. While insurance details get ironed out, she and her husband and kids live in a rental. The rented house is nice. It has Daffodils across the whole front and 2 large Forsythia bushes in the back yard. But its not home. It’s not where she spent 18 years after marrying and 15 years before that, (since the house that burned was the one we all grew up in and she later bought.) My sister has much invested in the old house, in the way of memories, and anxiously awaits the return. The pure white Dogwoods and flourescent Red Bud trees, the Magnolia and Azaleas her hands have planted or tended to; the birds, the squirrels, the bees that entertain; the distant view of massive oaks towering above the other trees across the way; her kitchen and living spaces and bedrooms, all adapted to her personality and to that of her little family—everything is so much better than where she is now.

But even though she can’t have her home at the present, at least she has her family. She is happy that they are safe and comfortable and happy. She didn’t have to move alone; they all swarmed together. The family unit is intact and still surrounding her. She can cope without her things so long as she has the people she loves the most.

We have a home in a far country. It is ours and it is beautiful. The flowers perfume the air; the colors vividly compete for their inspection at every turn. Warbled songs fill the ears and the fruit surpasses anything in this land. And a river runs through it all. But we can’t have it—not yet; and we are to blame for that. Our lack of appreciation for the Designer of that distant home plays heavily in our eviction. Yet He is preparing a place for us, even as He is preparing us to receive it.

But He has given us our family. While we wait to have our nice home back, which I’ve heard is just heavenly, we have our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in the faith. We can function as a unit, we can swarm together. While others fight when they are forced into close quarters, we love to have it so. And we love to sing the old song:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.