Feeling a bit low is a tricky thing to navigate. It’s easy to feel guilty and to fill your mind with ‘I should’s. I should feel happy. I should appreciate more. I should be thankful.
Today, I feel a bit low. I went on wordlive.org to read a bit of the Bible, thinking it would retrieve my mind and pull me into more positive realms. Unfortunately, it presented me with Psalm 90, which says, for example:
The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away…
The only part of this that I like is the flying away!
But actually, perhaps that is the point. I do believe there is hope of more and better. Many people think that the Christian idea of heaven or an ‘afterlife’ is all fluffy clouds and Ned Flanders types smiling inanely. But it seems to me that it is rather an eternity of freedom in the Presence of God, who is true Goodness and Light, and in the absence of suffering and evil… Someone said recently that perhaps we will ‘travel the universe’ and the Bible talks of rooms prepared for us, of a river of life, of colour and light and peace.
There are good things in each day – things like the warmth of a fire, a conversation with a friend, a burst of fireworks – but, though good, without an eternal perspective these are just moments. They might help to distract us from negative feelings for a while but they pass away. However, when seen as glimpses of heaven, these moments are injected with power to lift our focus, to bring us from a ‘low’ place to a ‘high’ one. One of the best gifts God has given us is our imagination, which when inspired by God’s promises and fuelled by the beauty and creativity around us, can fill our souls with hope.
Here are some glimpses of heaven to ‘fly away’ to for a while…
Beautiful quotes from CS Lewis. I especially like the long one that starts ‘First came bright spirits…’
Google search for ‘space’ images
‘I’ll Fly Away’, song by Jars of Clay
Image found via Pinterest
Life Lived 