In a previous lifetime I spent many years in elementary classrooms and labored through daily routines required for young learners. One such activity was a calendar exercise where teachers dutifully pointed to a one-dimensional rectangular graph of squares labeled with days and numbers and names. “Today is……. Yesterday was….. Tomorrow will be….”, and the children recited what was expected of them, mimicking the words.

I always loathed the activity—I wanted to run outside and point to the trees or stand in a circle and listen for birdsongs. Even a seven-year-old knows our lives are anything but one-dimensional, perfectly-measured squares of existence. Life varied on the daily, always carrying change and growth with it.

I think there is a more vibrant way to chart our lives, like more of a song cycle moving upward into the future, the circles growing closer to each other as we move towards the center, where God is. I’m discovering, too, that the closer I get to God and understand His endless love for me, the more like myself I become.

Signposts on the journey are everywhere; in the seasons, in the song of the birds, in the way the light changes. There are also interior markers, landmarks I return to where I notice I am learning more about God’s deep love for me and His endless patience as I slooooowly change.

God has placed eternity deep in the hearts of everyone (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and whether we realize it or not, are lives are anchored in eternity and Heaven, not the here and now. There is Something calling us home and the path is a long and winding road, not a straight line. We are slow learners; thank the Lord we have Jesus with us along the way!

I’m reminded of the ending lines in CS Lewis’ Narnia chronicle, The Last Battle, where Aslan declares,
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!”

Here’s to the journey!