Longing for Heaven

At a women's retreat a few years ago, I was nodding off (first night, long day at work, so tired...) and the speaker said something that caught my attention. She said, "when people ask you how you are doing, most of you say 'fine', but would you ever think about saying, 'I'm longing for heaven'?" Most of the women around me looked shocked at the idea. The speaker wasn't talking about being depressed and wishing you could die. I wish I could articulate this better, but basically she was just talking about how heaven is far better (Paul said that somewhere in the New Testament) than being here in this life. I saw some young mothers (some who had babies with them) have almost violent reactions to this. From things I have heard, I will assume that the thought of not being with their baby, not seeing all of the child's growing up, etc., didn't set too well at first. Not being a mother (yes, yes, I know that it is different when you have children), I cannot know how that feels. But I do know this: there have been times when people asked me how I was doing and I said, "Jesus could come today and I would be fine with that." That doesn't mean I'm suicidal and you need to have me checked out. That means that I know that Jesus will provide for me in Heaven in ways that I cannot imagine. I can think of plenty of reasons why He hasn't come yet, one of them hopefully being that my closest friend has not accepted Him as Savior yet - He's still working on her. But imagine... no more tears... getting to see Mama again... no worrying that my sister has been unemployed for months... sitting at the feet of my Savior and praising Him. I wish that it was not so shocking to hear people say, "I'm longing for Heaven". I want to hear the angels sing a new song. Are you longing to see Him or is there something here that you would rather do first? We don't usually think in terms of those things meaning more to us than He does... but do they hold a higher place in our heart sometimes? Hopefully I yearn to see Jesus just as much on my good days as I do on my bad days, but I can't promise that is always true. Just something to think about. xxooxxoo