The feeling of longing to go back to another time; a good time, a time when things were simple, a time before everything changed; a time when loved ones were still here, the “happy place”. I am sure we can all relate to these feelings of nostalgia in one way or another. Nostalgia is often brought about by seemingly ordinary things: the smell or taste of food, a particular song or even a place. In my case, it is my home in Zambia.
About a year ago, I went back there for my brother’s wedding and as I walked along a dusty road in my hometown Chingola the nostalgia returned – that street, that was my happy place. You could say that the street itself is nothing special in one sense – it’s just a street full of dust and potholes. But that’s the street I grew up on and spent 14 years of my life, a time when my Dad was still alive.
And as I walked down the street, the childhood memories returned like it was yesterday. That house that my friends and I always ran past because they had vicious dogs, the games we played, the trees we climbed, the mangoes we ate, the people. Except everything had changed – those houses had changed, the trees I remembered weren’t there anymore and some of the people that made those memories have passed away.
So as I walked down memory lane, my longing to return to this place soon became an ache inside of me, I wanted to recapture those memories but I couldn’t. Instead, I found that my smile and laughter as I remembered slowly turned into sadness. This made me stop and reflect. I was looking forward to this trip and even planned on vlogging the walk down memory lane, so why was I experiencing this mixture of emotions, joy and sadness?
I realised that I was smiling because nostalgic memories like this are a great reminder of the joys of life. In fact, they can often be a perspective shifter of what really matters in the midst of life’s busy schedules – this is often the people and relationships and the experiences that we share with them. These memories are a reminder when we forget God’s goodness and blessings, of the things we often take for granted at the time. They are a reminder of the joy that we can experience in this life through things that God has made and given to us. But they are also a painful reminder that we live in a fallen world, where nothing lasts, where things decay and where death rears its ugly head.
As I wrestled with my emotions, I considered the words of Ecclesiastes. The writer of Ecclesiastes discovered this tension of life enjoyed and the sorrow of the enjoyments being short-lived. This was his conclusion as he looked back on everything he possessed and everything he had accomplished under the sun:
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labour and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
He had it all, but it came and then it went, it was vanity, it was empty. He didn’t say he didn’t have a great time, he had experienced laughter and joy – but he says at the end of the day this is meaningless… if your only perspective is here and now, life under the sun, as it were. As Christians however, we do not just have the ‘under the sun’ perspective, we have a much bigger one, an eternal perspective.
Ecclesiastes reminds us that our joys and experiences are not meant to fulfil us; they cannot do that because they do not last. God has made beautiful things for us to enjoy, but God has also placed eternity in our hearts meaning that we were made with eternity desires, we were made to marvel at eternal beauty, we were made to seek eternal joy and we were made ultimately to find fulfilment in an eternal love. We were made for God.
So when the sadness comes because we cannot return to the happy place, it is a reminder that we are meant to lift our heads and look up. The temporary joy should point us to our future hope, a hope with our bridegroom Christ himself, with a banquet and feast where joy will overflow (Revelation 19:7), and this time the joy will last forever. The sadness grounds us, it reminds us that this world is not our home, so we should not get too comfortable “for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). There is a glorious future that Christ has made possible for us where there will be no death, sorrow, crying or pain (Revelation 21:1-5)
So the next time memory lane brings you bittersweet memories, remember the gospel, remember Jesus and remember the hope you have which stands the test of time, and lift your eyes beyond this world to the world to come, and maybe that will bring a smile to your face as you say: Come Lord Jesus!
