I DON'T BELONG

I’ve been noticing from my window at my computer desk what seems to be a Hummingbird Reunion. They are everywhere! If they’re not feeding from the potluck at the hummingbird feeder, they’re deep in conversation, relaxing together in the living room of our chestnut tree.

I’m not real familiar with this concept of family reunions. I’ve only been to one or two in my family and they were very small and I can’t say that I got real acquainted with family members that I didn’t know real well. Strangely enough, as I thought about it, I thought, even my immediate family I don’t know real well. I have brothers and sisters that barely know me and vice versa. I pretty much feel as if I don't belong. Sad, huh?

Maybe I have the feelings of not belonging because of my ongoing battle with depression. If there’s anything that makes one feel so alone and alienated, it’s depression. I can’t explain that – but I’m sure anyone who’s had a history of depression/mental illness will know what I’m talking about. I feel somewhat like a stranger in this world. It’s okay, though. I’ve learned not only to deal with it and live with it, but am aware that it’s the perspective of a Christian. We are but strangers and pilgrims on this earth. Our lives are but vapors or mists which is why we’re not to store up treasures on this earth. That’s why the feeling of alienation is often very persistent, and it should be for we Christians! I don’t belong here. It kinda makes me feel good to have the bible describe me as a stranger. Everybody else pretty much tells me that, so when the bible verifies it, and tells me it’s because my home isn’t down here, but ‘up there’…..then I can tell people that Jesus deliberately made me this way!

We studied that in our Discipleship Class at church this week. We talked about Heaven, and our perspective of it with regard to this present world and the ties we have to it. It was a good study. It made me more anxious to go home. Home. Where mama and daddy now reside. Home, where my sweet brother, Pat now lives. Joni Eareckson Tada in her book “Heaven” calls it “The land of ‘no more’s’ ”. Revelation 21:4 describes it, but in Joni’s words….”No more sorrow, crying, pain, curse, and – praise be to God – no more death.” Heaven will be “an undoing of all the bad things we know as God wipes away every tear and closes the curtain on pain and disappointment.”

I don’t belong here. I'd rather be in a place where I feel like I belong....someplace like home. So I’m packing my bags for home – the land of no more’s. For me that means no more back pain, headaches, depression, disease. No more Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Communism. No more Wesleyan, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons. No more cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods. No more famine, killing, Cancer, Aids. No more sin. No more feelings of not belonging.

There are so many songs written about heaven. Here’s just a few lines from some that I’ve had on my mind lately.

I DON’T BELONG Buddy Green & Gaithers

I don’t belong and I’m going someday
Home to my own native land
I don’t belong and it seems like I hear
The sound of a “welcome home” band
I don’t belong, I’m a foreigner here
Singing a sojourner’s song
I’ve always known this place ain’t home
And I don’t belong

GOING HOME Bill & Gloria Gaither

Many times in my childhood when we'd traveled so far,
By nightfall how weary I'd grow;
Father's arms would slip 'round me,
So gently he'd say,
"My child, we're going home."

(Chorus)
Going home, I'm going home,
There's nothing to hold me here;
Well, I've caught a glimpse of that heavenly land,
Praise God, I'm going home.

Now the twilight is fading and the day soon shall end;
I get homesick the farther I roam;
But my Father has led me each step of the way,
And now we're going home.

HOME Gaithers?

Home is where the heart is, my heart's on home,
Even though I never really had one to call my own.
But I've been given a key, by the carpenter of Galliee,
And the interests’ paid - the title's made to me.

Home ... where there is no night,
Home... where the Son is the Light.
The place I've been dreaming of so long.
Loved ones there to welcome me,
But His sweet face will be the first I see.
When my journey's over, I am going home.

Everybody dreams... of going home it seems,
And lately I'm no exception to the rule.
But home is so much more...
Than windows, walls, and doors,
It's the warm embrace and the smiling face
Waiting there for you