KELSIE PETERSEN
A year ago, I wrote a post about changing seasons and the unchanging nature of God. I’ll confess, the “season” of life here has been more “winter” than I would have expected, and it looks like it may be here to stay for awhile. There are so many ways my life is, once again, nothing like I ever dreamed it would be (especially in Canada, the True North, Strong and Free), and its been a disorienting and confusing time in a lot of ways. While we wait in uncertainty for the coming weeks and months, I found it encouraging to go back and read what I wrote just one year ago. While MY perspectives and circumstances have changed since then, God has not, and that continues to bring me great comfort.
None of us truly knows what tomorrow brings, it is true, but staring in the face of a lot of impending uncertainty (job loss, potential relocation, and more), it seems that it’s a lot more stressful now, knowing that things are maybe, possibly, likely to change in big ways, but not having any idea how or when. I feel that many places in the world have stabilized somewhat over the past several months, but our situation here seems to be growing in it instability and unpredictability. As a mere mortal, I find that insecurity hard to manage internally, while still managing all the predictable things in my life: three boys who seem to need to eat all the time, who love to jump and climb on a lot of things and are VERY loud, not to mention the laundry and the dishes and the meals, the marriage, and the part time job. How do I keep the “humming” of every day life going while it feels like “out there” things are changing rapidly, and in concerning ways?
This more visible unpredictability of life during this season has brought me lately to music.
This more visible unpredictability of life during this season has brought me lately to music. I’ve played the piano ever since I can remember, and music was always my favorite part of church or school—or anything else. I don’t pretend to be oozing with talent; I can get by, and while I can carry a tune in a bucket, I confess that the bucket sometimes leaks! But I enjoy music, and it is one of the ways I am most reminded of who God is and of His love for me. I’ve been singing and playing the old hymns, going through my online playlists and listening to hours of my favorite Christian musicians and looking back through some of my old music books from years gone by.
The other morning I was feeling particularly melancholy as some bit of new information or another had crossed my path. I found myself wanting to look for a way “out.” This desire to run has happened a few times, and I find myself dreaming about extremes ranging from escaping to a new country to living my days within a stone’s throw of family. Often, however, when this mood strikes, I just want to be off this ride, completely.
Of course, as a believer, I am always looking forward to eternity, to heaven, but in these moments, I feel the yearning more deeply, more keenly than usual. As I thought about this yearning for heaven, I remembered a song from my past. It’s not one you can look up on Spotify; it’s never been recorded that I know of. It was written for the group of “young people” with whom I traveled to Venezuela some 25 years ago as part of a Christian mission team. The bulk of our ministry was music and the arts, and one of the leaders of the mission organization had written a song for us to use, both in North American ministry as well as in Venezuela. I wish I could remember all of the lyrics clearly (I looked for an old copy of the chord sheet, but it seems to have vanished), but I’ll give it my best shot.
Man and woman walk in the Eden, …in the cool of the day.
Fellowship with God, their Creator; Love and harmony, unashamed.
Then temptations whispered gained a listening ear;
Now all creation groans behind these walls of fear.
All of us are homesick for Eden, We yearn to return to a land we’ve never known.
All of us are homesick for Eden, We yearn to return to a place we’ve never been.
I may have teared up a little bit as I remembered the lyrics and the tune in my mind. Twenty-five years ago, I don’t think I understood what it’s like to be “homesick” for Heaven and to return to “Eden” in the way I do now.
Maybe it’s my age that’s starting to show, or maybe it’s the circumstances in which I find myself, but whatever it is, I am more keenly aware of a sense of not belonging here and of a yearning for a better place.
Maybe it’s my age that’s starting to show, or maybe it’s the circumstances in which I find myself, but whatever it is, I am more keenly aware of a sense of not belonging here and of a yearning for a better place. As a believer, my home is in Heaven, and I find myself feeling more expectant and more hopeful of my arrival there as time goes on. I don’t know when that time will be for me, or for you, but I am constantly reminded lately that this world is not my home.
The passage that came to mind while reminiscing of this song was, ironically, one that came to mind when I wrote the post on seasons last year. Ecclesiastes 3 is a commonly quoted passage of Scripture, beginning with the exposition of the many things for which there is “a time” in this earthly life.
The next section begins as follows:
He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. (Verse 11, emphasis mine)
This verse describes so aptly what has been in my heart lately. Eternity. The rest of the verse is timely, as well, saying that we can never know all that God has done nor all that He will do, but the reality remains that we are made to yearn for more than what is here. We are made to know that there is more, without knowing what it will be, exactly. Yet in our yearning and uncertainty, we can know that He is still unchanging, and that He is good.
Things here are shifting and changing rapidly enough that I’m not even certain of what the next six weeks hold for my family; but, as always, I am reminded that whatever comes our way, it is not without His knowing and His provision.
I’ll leave you with a song that IS available for listening, another one that often comes to mind when I’m feeling homesick for Eden, yearning for Heaven. This is not where we belong. Someday we will be home.
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- Boast in the Lord! - February 2, 2023
Ohhh, Kelsie! You have just written my yearnings exactly!
I am so eager to see my Lord with all the woes of this world in the past.
Even in these trying times, I find in Him, praise, joy and love!
Prayers for you and your family as you embark on this new chapter.