Created for a Place I've Never Known

I remember as a young girl sneaking into my grandmother's room and feeling at the back of her wardrobe. I knew The Chronicles of Narnia were just stories, but something about Narnia captivated me, and I wanted to go there. But of course, I didn't find it.

It's not like I had anything to escape from. I had a very nice home here on earth. I had a loving family and didn't have many trials to endure in my youth. But I think that even at a young age, something within me hoped and earned for something greater than life here.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:18-25)

Narnia is not a representation of heaven. There is evil and war there; it's not perfect. But Narnia represents (at least for me and in my opinion) what we go through to get to heaven, our salvation, our lives in Christ, and what is to come. It is a representation of our home here (our life in Christ) and an inkling of our home that is to come (in heaven). I could try to explain this further, but I think the author of Narnia did a beautiful job saying it himself.

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." -C.S. Lewis

This is not home, at least not our permanent, forever home. On Thursday I heard a woman who lost her house to a tornado in April talking about her new house. She, more than many of us, knows how temporal the shelters in which we live are. They can be gone in an instant. It is our future glory that remains. It is Christ who remains. That is home. That is what we were made for.



This post is part of a blog carnival. See who else wrote about home today: http://thewordsthatcarrythehope.com/