Recently, Elijah and I and our baby son packed up our home in a Pennsylvania city and moved ourselves to the land of our ancestors. We now live on the edge of a little village nestled in the Taunus mountains and are slowly discovering what it means to call this place home.

Amid all the unsettling and resettling, my mind has often wandered off to imaginations of my coming home. Saying goodbye too many times and experiencing the subsequent loneliness of the unfamiliar has a way of turning my thoughts to New Creation like few other experiences I’ve had. 

Thinking about this topic hasn’t always gotten me as excited as it does now.  As a young girl, I was terrified at the thought of the return of Jesus. I was embarrassed to admit it because as a Christian, that should be the single event I look forward to most. Paul even said in Thessalonians that we should comfort each other with reminders of the imminent return of our King (1 Thess. 4:18). To be fair, it wasn’t so much that I feared Jesus’ return. It was that people liked to sit around discussing the dreadful events sure to be right around the next corner, and how all “this must take place” before Jesus will show up (Matt. 24:6). It was the events leading up to the end of the world that I feared. 

I remember my chest getting tight and the fear I felt with any discussion that turned to eschatology. I knew it wasn’t ok. But I also had no idea how to be comforted with these words. I hated that Paul had written that, because well-meaning preachers would take him up on it and preach end-of-the-world-doomsday-comfort while I trembled in my pew and tried not to listen too closely. It’s all different now and I can’t tell you exactly how it happened. It was a slow process of coming to understand the resurrection better, until it has become one of the topics I am most passionate about. 

Because Jesus rose from the dead, He will also raise the old creation from the death of the curse. Rather than only seeing the deadness around us as doomsday indicators, we recognize the beauty as signposts of the restoration that is to come. Signposts pointing ahead to the fullness of beauty of New Creation. Our ultimate hope isn’t that someday we will float into the clouds playing harps, but that New Jerusalem will come down to transform earth. Jesus will set up His Kingdom in a real, physical way on this globe, and we will work and rule here the way we were created to live (Rev. 21:10, Gen. 2:15). All the sin, evil, and decay will be burned up in the great purification of the earth and what will be left will be very good. And more than that, the New Creation that will be raised in place of the old will only fulfill all that is truly good now, from hummingbirds and raindrops to sandy cliffs and snowflakes.  

Recently I dreamt that Jesus returned to restore creation. He came walking on the earth and as He walked He gathered all His own and we followed Him in a long glorious procession. As we walked, the earth was restored to perfection. In the dream, the world was burning up around us and there would have been cause for much fear, except that we knew this meant Jesus was coming to rescue us. We were so excited about Jesus coming that we hardly noticed what was terrifying. What I remember most is the feeling of absolute joy and contentment—the sense of everything being set to right. Obviously, this was only a dream and I’m not basing my eschatology on it. But it was meaningful to me because I realized that I finally was looking forward to Jesus’ return. 

In the dream, as in reality, His return is a fundamentally good thing that marks not only the destruction of the darkness but the revelation of creation as it should be. The emotions I felt in the dream were so opposite of what most people feel when thinking about the end of the world, yet exactly what Paul seems to have in mind when he writes that Christians are “…those who love His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8).”

The coming “restoration of all things to Himself” has become my reason for living the life I live (Col. 1:20).  It’s why I was ok with leaving my close-knit family and circle of friends who’ve known me from childhood. Because I know that someday soon we will be living together on this earth free from brokenness and separation. I know that the life I live now will never be perfect and complete, but that I can turn the sacrifices into offerings of praise to God and that somehow, in a way I do not understand now, these sacrifices will work for me a “greater weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17).”  I will find that I do not regret that my baby didn’t get to grow up with his grandparents, aunties and uncles. I will not ultimately feel like I missed out because I lived so far from all the people dearest to me. 

Longing for home—our real home—does not mean I am less focused on caring for the earth and creating beauty. If the same God who created the earth is planning on restoring it, then we should delight in the old creation knowing that the beauty is only going to be more exquisite in the New. I care a lot about art and beauty and creating spaces in which people can feel at home and restful because I believe in the resurrection. Creating beauty is a declaration to ourselves that the earth won’t always be broken. We have a reason to keep fighting for truth, goodness, and beauty because one day the earth will be full of that again. 

Some days, when the sadness of this world feels especially strong and demanding, I go out to the fields and forests behind my house and remind myself of the truth of the coming resurrection. It’s easier to remember that Jesus is coming soon when I’m in the quiet and calm of singing birds and a bubbling stream. That’s the thing I love about this place we call home now; there’s so much space to explore and roam and wonder about what it will be like to finally be enjoying creation in its full glory and beauty, the way it was always meant to be.