For When You’re Having a Hard Time Being Human

I’m rarely at a loss for words.

But that’s exactly how I’ve felt the past month every time I’ve started to write a blog post. I’ve been sharing my life in this space for a decade now. Ten years. By now, we know each other well. So, you know that when I don’t know what to say next, I’m in a weird place.

I can say this: I’ve had a hard time being a human lately. I, mean, I like being human, I’m just not very good at it.

I told my husband the other night after a long day that I was ready for Heaven. He looked alarmed. I reassured him that I wasn’t planning on an immediate trip, but I’ve just felt more homesick than normal.

Here’s why: I was sitting in church a couple of weeks ago and I was reminded we weren’t created for this earth. We were created for eternity and being a human on earth comes with problems and pain; suffering and struggles.

Randy Alcorn says that “Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us.”

Our problems tether us to Heaven, not earth. If our day-to-day is all we had to look forward to, some weeks would be down right depressing, but our pain forces us to look to Jesus.

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodiesWhile we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. 2 Corinthians 5:1-9

I love what C.S. Lewis says, “The fact that our heart yearns for something earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home.”

So, when life hits you hard and you get tired of being a human, it just means that we were created for something more.