Eyes on Heaven; feet on the ground

On Sunday in church, our pastor showed a great video clip about the rapture. All week long it has been on my mind. The troubles and stress of this earth make me long so desperately for Heaven. I see illness, suffering and hardship all around me. It seems like every day I hear of a new person battling cancer, someone else who lost a loved one, or another job which fell victim to this terrible economy. Then there’s the stress…oh the stress. Each morning I wake and immediately begin my frenzied pace. I start the coffee and the laundry; get John up and off to work. I pray, read my Bible and blog. Then I take a quick break to run down and switch the loads. I hurry to get my work calls in before too many children awake. After working, I direct the kids to start their morning chores and lessons. Then there’s more laundry to be done, a load of dishes for the dishwasher, and a bit more work before feeding them lunch and putting Hannah down for a nap. Then it is afternoon work for me and lessons for the kids followed by more chores for the kids, more loads of laundry for me, and a quickly thrown together dinner. I rarely have time to exercise, and only occasionally do I get a few moments of downtime. Some nights we have soccer practice or Bible club or youth group kids coming over. AHHHHH! Most nights I find myself dropping into bed somewhere around 10 p.m. thinking of all the things I did not get finished and before I know it the alarm sounds and I am off to the races again.

All of it just makes me LONG to be in Heaven. I want to be walking the streets of gold. I want to just sit at my Savior’s feet basking in His glory. I want to praise Him without interruption or distraction. I want to be done with pain and sorrow and tears. I want stress to be a thing of the past and hanging with my Savior to be the only thing on my to do list.

Alas however here I am still on the earth….what to do? what to do? At the end of each day whether I have a completely checked off to do list or a ton of items still pending, whether cancer has won or been defeated, whether all is well or not well, I have to keep my eyes on Heaven and my feet on the ground. I just have to keep gazing forward to the day when I am standing before Him while working hard on all the things God is calling me to complete this day. It is hard because my spirit groans inside of me. I long for what is to come. Yet that is not what God has called me to this day.

So join with me please. Turn your head up and get your eyes on Heaven. Can you see those streets of gold? Can you hear the angels praising Him? Can you feel that longing to be with Him? But be careful! Keep your feet planted here on earth, because there is oh so much to do here before He returns.