Adj. 1. Restless. Yearning to be made whole. Noun 2. An abyss of longing to be filled with a life-giving love.This season of Lent has brought about a certain period of dryness that Jesus surely identifies with. I have learned that my heart, apart from His, seems to just be this gaping hole in my soul longing to be filled.
Given my (extremely cheesy, but accurate) definition above, you can imagine the intensity I've been praying with for God to fill me, give me rest, and to complete me. Nevertheless, it seems that God answers, with the same intensity, by placing me in situations that only stretch my heart even more. He is tirelessly renovating the interior of my heart to create more space (God, I said grace, not space... ha ha) -- as if I could possibly yearn for more. Well, come to find out, I could and I do.
But it's okay because only God can get away with being dramatically paradoxical like that. I notice that God likes to fill by emptying. However, this emptiness sometimes feels like rejection, desolation, isolation, abandonment, unworthiness, and being undesirable -- not exactly the road I imagined to being "filled." And you can count on me to grow weary and impatient enough to start asking, Why, God? and to wonder if he forgot that he wasn't done with me yet.
Though he often answers with a silence unlike any other, it is a kind of silence loud and powerful enough to keep me moving towards His voice. Though I hesitate, delay, or stumble along the way, I continue and I trust, despite not feeling like it, that fulfillment awaits me in the hands of the Father.
The trust usually quiets my restless thoughts and worries enough for me to hear the faintest whispers that turn into a loud voice resonating in the cavern of my soul that is my heart, echoing, "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of age." Though this neither answers the why nor the did-you-forget-me, it does more than satisfy my heart.
Then it becomes clear all over again. In the emptiness, on that sometimes awfully quiet road to Him, he gives His very presence as the answer. When he says He is with us, he means he is; he exists; he lives with us. He allows us to experience everything that he feels in his own very heart: Rejection, desolation, isolation, abandonment, and so on & so forth. If we are suffering, then he is suffering with us, too. If we are delighted, then he is, too. So with every little thing he allows our hearts to endure, it is simply Jesus allowing us into His personal being, His sacred existence, the divine mystery of His Incarnation. It is him allowing us to be able to say in return, "Jesus, I am with you also."
For isn't this what love is? To not only desire the beloved, but to also desire union with them. Knowing that God lets in His divine life an imperfect being like myself says so much about the loving God that he is, and also so much about the lovable and endlessly loved human being that he lets me know I am.
It isn't the fulfillment of our hearts that will, well... fulfill our longings, but rather our fulfillment of God's will. Mary's full yes to the angel of the Lord perfectly exemplifies this. The openness, the spaciousness of her heart said yes, and so her heart must have been a cup overflowing with abundance of joy.
In every season, being invited to say 'yes' in sharing in the cup of our beloved Savior's joys and sufferings should remind us that our hearts, united with His, is an oasis for others.
+JMJ+
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