A 'tweener

'tweener (twee-nuhr) n. 1. Something or someone in the area separating categories or space. Orange is a 'tweener of red and yellow. Warm is a 'tweener of hot and cold.
(My father-in-law first introduced me to this word years ago. At first it seemed funny. Then I began to see it as clever. Now it has become an essential part of my vocabulary. Take it and use it. I'll bet it becomes essential for you, too.)

For about the last year and a half, I have been feeling, well, not quite comfortable. I've been kind of itchy, and irritable. (No, I did not forget a 'b' back there.) It's the way I imagine babies feel when they fuss a bit just before they fall asleep. They are not really awake and they are not yet asleep. Things just aren't right until they finally drift off to a peaceful rest.

I thought this started with the Terry Schiavo fiasco, but it actually began long before that. The deep funk I felt over the Schiavo case was the first time this sense (it had been very subtle before) was an actual feeling. It was measureable. I could tell for certain something just wasn't right. It actually made me sick to hear people use the term "non-human person" and espouse their "criteria for personhood". I felt like Alice through the looking glass.

I haven't had another acute experience such as that, but that sense of light nausea has never completely gone away. You see, while I am living in this world, I am growing in the knowledge of another world. And that other world is the place where I am supposed to be. I and you and every image-bearing being of God's creation were meant for heaven. Believers are indeed 'tweeners.

When I remember that, the nausea subsides a bit. When I am refreshed by the truth and promises of God's word, I can relax and cast all my anxieties on Him. We are indeed strangers and pilgrims on the earth. I declare plainly that I seek a homeland--a better, heavenly country. Thank God He has prepared a city for us!