Bookish Escapes & Eternal Longing
I felt like talking about books this morning—
how they change us, and how some of them stay consistently at the forefront of our minds.
Some books don’t just entertain — they haunt.
Not in a spooky way, but in that back-of-your-throat, ache-in-your-chest kind of way.
That I-wish-this-was-real kind of way.
You know the ones.
The books that leave you staring at the last page like you’ve lost a friend.
Or worse — like you’ve been exiled from a world you loved.
You spent hours watching it unfold in your imagination,
dreading the ending because you didn’t want to leave.
These are the stories where light always overcomes darkness,
where battles are worth fighting,
love is sacrificial,
and hope is never wasted.
And your heart is left yearning for a world that doesn’t actually exist except between the pages you then held.
I used to think it was just escapism —reading to run.
Reality was loud, chaotic,
too much.
Books felt like the only sane moments I could hold onto.
Me, tucked away somewhere quiet, nose buried in a chapter that made sense when nothing else did.
But now I think it’s something holier:
A holy homesickness.
A soul that’s tasted eternity and knows deep down —
this isn’t home.
C.S. Lewis called it sehnsucht — that ache, that longing,
that deep-down yearning for a place we’ve never seen but somehow remember.
It’s the flicker of Eden still burning in our bones.
For me, fantasy makes that longing pierce even deeper.
It awakens a desire to live in those mystical, wonder-filled places —
where healing is real, good always triumphs, and everything broken finds restoration.
And maybe — just maybe —
stories are more than imagination.
Maybe some authors are holding up looking glasses,
offering us a glimpse,
however muddy,
As we’re limited in our human understanding,
of what the New Heavens and New Earth might one day be.
Until then, the longing remains.
It stays with me as I scan the pages,
searching for home
while wandering through an alien world.
The ache of separation from the Kingdom we were made for.
The quiet flame in our chest,
reignited by our eternal Father and our guiding light home.
Books stir that.
Especially the good ones —
the ones with talking trees and unlikely heroes,
lost crowns and brave friendships,
prophecies and healing.
They echo the True Story written on our hearts:
That there is a Rescuer.
That evil doesn’t win.
That joy is coming.
That we are not abandoned in the middle of the plot.
So here’s to the stories that remind us:
we were made for more.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has wrought from beginning to end.
— Ecclesiastes 3:11
Even in fantasy, fairy tales, and folktales,
our hearts can find breadcrumbs
that lead us closer to the Author of it all.