SPIRITUAL MATTERS
Nostalgia for heaven
The older I become, the more time I spend thinking of my past. I guess middle age has that effect on some of us. My grandparents did it and my parents did it and now it’s my turn. I can be driving down the highway reviewing my plans for the day when a song comes on the radio and instantly, I’m seventeen again without a care in the world. Or I smell a distinctive aftershave and I’m immediately a little girl, sitting in my daddy’s lap as he works on the newspaper crossword puzzle. Memories. The veil that separates today from all those yesterdays seems to be getting thinner and thinner. I think a lot about my childhood home. I hear the cows mooing in the backyard pasture. I taste a salted tomato, still warm from the sun. I see my mom cooking our supper or my brother tossing his football.
These kinds of memories are often called “nostalgia.” This is a Greek word that means “longing for home.” That rings true for me, as I was blessed to come from a loving home. Maybe for others, that nostalgia may be for whatever time or place in their lives that represents a safe and accepting place to them. Memories like this are often most aching when we experience the death of someone we love. Standing at my mother’s graveside the past, the present and the future are all together in that one spot. I remember her from the past. I miss her now. And I anticipate seeing her again in heaven. I am nostalgic for that moment. God has designed us to have that homesickness
Judy Bowman
for heaven because that’s why we were created. I suppose I’m thinking of heaven more these days because as I age, more and more of my family and friends have already made the journey.
Sorting through my mother’s things after she died, I came across her address book. Most of the names in it were crossed out. As we lose the ones we’ve loved in this life, our eyes and our hearts turn ever more often to those distant hills that shelter our forever home.
I think the saints are consumed with that yearning for heaven. Their lives are extraordinarily fixed on the eternal presence of The Lord. Like St. Paul, they feel that powerful pull to the home they’ve never seen. He wrote about the Jewish saints like Sarah and Abraham and Noah saying, “…they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one”(hebrews 11:16). But so many of us have an impoverished idea of the reality of paradise. Who among us longs for an eternity of playing harps on fluffy clouds? Surely the earliest Christians did not die as martyrs for this boring reward. No, we can see what they imagined heaven to be from the paintings they left for us on the walls of the catacombs.
Their heaven was a beautiful garden, filled with children and animals playing together, with parties and banquets and feasting and singing. It was a real, living Garden of Eden. Heaven was their home and they were willing to lay down their lives to go there. In St. John’s Revelation, we can see what The Lord showed to His beloved disciple. “I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, ‘Come! Gather for the great banquet of God’ “(Rev. 19:17). It’s a party alright. One filled beyond our knowing with an over-abundance of joy and love: with our Lord. We’ll be with our loved ones and with new friends, with the angels and the choirs. And there’ll be surprises, because our God is a god of surprises, after all. We’ll be free of sin, which is everything that has limited us on earth. As Dr. Peter Kreeft has said, “Jesus is our best indicator of Heaven.” What a wonderful place to live! No wonder we long for it so deeply. He is our beginning and our end, our Alpha and our Omega. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”(colossians 1:17). That includes you and me. As we journey through Lent this year, let’s focus less on giving something up and more on loving and serving Jesus and the people in our lives. Let’s keep our hearts moving to our heavenly home, with joy and gratitude.
“Oh my delight, Lord of all created things and my God! How long must I wait to see You?” — St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Glenda Smiley, Pleasant Valley Baptist Church
You are always welcome at Pleasant Valley Baptist. We look forward to your visit. So come and worship with us.
Pastor Flood’s messages are always true to God’s Word. Sunday morning and evening messages were encouraging to believers. The morning message challenged believers to be faithful by sharing the message of salvation to all we with whom we come in contact. It is selfish to know truth and keep it to our self when people are dying without Christ every day. We are here to serve and to share. Share salvation by telling others to confess their sin, believe in Christ’s finished work on the cross, His resurrection, and personally receive Christ into their life by faith. This is God’s plan to reconcile all mankind to Himself and give them eternal life. Today is the day to be saved.
Continue to pray for members Mike Cross, Denise Pitts, Betty Pitts, Pastor and his family, and all who need our prayers. Pray for the Mcallister family in the sudden death of Rick. Pray for our shut-ins, Carolyn Denton and Lula Petty. Pray for those who have lost loved ones. Pray for our churches, missionaries, and evangelist. Pray for all of our government representatives, state or federal, who desperately need our prayers. Our country is in desperate need of prayer. Most importantly, pray for souls needing to be saved with time growing short.
Pleasant Valley Baptist continues to practice social distancing with mask-wearing being optional. Visit or view our services for encouragement from God’s Word.
Join us Sundays at 11 am and 6 pm for in-person services, Facebook or Youtube. Wednesday night Bible Study, 7 pm Facebook or Youtube, Brother Cody Cranmore.