Empty spaces.
I’m not talking about the ones between my teeth.
It’s a hollow crevice somewhere within our secret self. A mining shaft of loneliness.
Toss in a penny and listen as the echo of its clatter spirals lower and lower,
Farther and farther away.
I get it. Even though I’m
- United with my husband body, soul and spirit.
- Bonded to my children with a mother’s heart.
- Connected with a community of believers.
It’s not enough.
It was never meant to be.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. Shaken and restless.
It’s as if a homing device has been activated. My senses long something I cannot define.
Sometimes,
- it’s a song that ambushes my emotions
- or a glimpse of windswept sky that penetrates my complacency.
The ache starts, way down inside the chasm of my being.
For a few seconds, the truth emerges like a phantom and whispers,
You are not complete.
Creeped out?
Don’t be.
It’s a good thing. This ache.
This feeling-like-a-homesick-kid
- On the top bunk
- In a cabin
- Wondering if he will ever get home.
“The only ultimate disaster that can befall us…is to feel ourselves to be home on earth.”
wrote Max Lucado in a blog post called
Longing for Heaven: Going Home to God,
“As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.”
Our homeland.
Heaven.
Go ahead.
Yearn for a connection that cannot be satisfied on earth.
Ache for the day when
- the presence of God
- will reach into the bottom of our bottomless pit
- and touch the deepest part of us.
It’s a good thing.
To long for home.
