Hiraeth (Here-eyeth) is one of those words in Welsh that doesn’t have a specific equivalent translation into English. The nearest you can get is ‘Longing for one’s home’ and frankly ‘Home-sickness’ really doesn’t come up to scratch. An example I remember being told of was an aunty of mine who had married and moved to the outskirts of London in the 1930’s and remained there for the rest of her life. When she was feeling particularly down and missing Wales she used to sit and watch the coaches going between London and Swansea on the off chance of seeing somebody she knew.
Funnily enough this was something that I thought I was now immune from having now passed the point in time where I have lived in England longer than I ever lived in Wales. That was however until we went on holiday to South Wales this summer. We stayed on the edge of the Black Mountains and over the space of one week took in some of the most beautiful scenery the UK has to offer. To think this is the same scenery I grew up with on my doorstep and I was utterly indifferent to it (and seeing the Great Barrier Reef didn’t help much). In this case it is especially true that familiarity does indeed breed contempt and I stand guilty as charged on that count.
This made me realise how easily we as Christians can become calloused to what God through Jesus has done for us. We so often sing those words of John Newton’s ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me’ and just sing it without grasping the full enormity of those words. Before God intervened so graciously in our lives we were sinners and quite literally enemies of a Holy God.
I really believe that we need to never lose the wonder of what Jesus has done for us but realise that when we are faced by what this world tells us that we can ‘Live your best life now’ is a false and godless lie. This is contrary to what the Bible teaches that even the best this world might have to offer isn’t even a pale imitation of awaits us in Heaven because of what Jesus did on the cross. As the apostle Paul puts it in Philippians 3 v 8:
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ
I underlined the words ‘everything’ and ‘garbage’ quite deliberately as they are emphatic in their tone. Think of the most joyous occasion in your life to date and then forget it as what God through Jesus has in store for us in Heaven makes it look like something you wouldn’t want stuck to your shoe. Thankfully there are those all too few fleeting moments when we get just a tantalising glimpse of what heaven is like and what Jesus has in store for us on the other side of this life. It won’t be the popular cartoon image of sitting around with wings playing harps – it will be an eternal state of praising God for what He has done through the Cross for us.
So, I just finish with this – do we get the feeling of ‘Hiraeth’ for our Heavenly Home when we compare the temporal things this world has to offer irrespective of how good they make us feel, do we have that hope in our lives? If not:
‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.
In the light of His glory and grace.’
Image credit: Robert J Heath via Flickr
