I sit with you on the floor of my living room, sprawled out on my yoga mat. I had every intention of coming out here on this Saturday morning, while my kids play in their rooms, to do a short quiet time and then a yoga session, to get my day started off right.
As I read my devotional, I felt the stirring of something
that’s been brewing inside my soul for a few days now, begin to boil over. I
knew that time was on my side, as we have a slow Saturday ahead of us, that it
was time to dig out what the Lord has been trying to teach me and lay it all
out on this paper. You see, this blog and writing has always served a
consistent purpose for me. Picture a wind tunnel, with little POST-It papers
flying around the tunnel, as the wind subsides the POST-It’s land in a heap.
Writing for me, is like walking in to the tunnel and laying out the papers so
they are neat and orderly, sticking them to the walls in a satisfying line.
As I bound through my days, raising my kids and keeping my home in order, I pause often to cry out to God for help. Its old news that this is hard and I struggle on the daily to be a patient Mom, an attentive friend & to not freak out while I pick up the toys, again. So, as you can imagine, the wind tunnel is my life and the POST-ITS are my thoughts; when I find myself getting tired of the heap, it’s time to write.
As I was driving
home from my cleaning job last night, I felt the ache of a void. This void is
not a stranger, it appears often. Usually in the quieter moments of my days,
when I’m driving or when I’m laying down to go to bed. It’s the ache, that
something is missing; there is an empty space in my heart that longs to be
filled.
As I maneuver my way through life, I’ve come to realize that
this void accompanies all of us. We all have our own void that nestles in our
souls and convinces us that we don’t have enough of what we need, in our relationships,
in our homes, in our cars or even our Amazon cart.
This void makes us think that we are lacking and we must
spend our lives searching for the one thing that will make us feel whole.
I’ve spent so many quiet mornings with my journal and my
pen, crying out to God about my voids. The things I think I need to be happy,
to feel like a successful mother, wife or person. As I have done this, and I continue
on living my life, the void is still there. Many could say your God doesn’t hear
you; He doesn’t care about your void.
But the more time I
spend mulling over this emptiness that I feel, no matter how much is in my bank
account or how many inches I may have lost around my waist, it’s there.
The void is what God
uses to remind us that we need Him, that no matter what we’re facing in our
lives, if we don’t filter it through God’s promise to love us, take care of us,
and give us what we need, we’ll never feel whole.
Matthew 6: 25-34 says.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or
reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you
not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour
to your life?”
So my friends, when you
feel the void, and your heart is pushing you to fill it with- whatever you
think may fill it- be still and look up. Ask God to fill your void with His love,
His direction for your life, His promise to give you hope and a future. God is
the only thing that will fill your void and give you that wholeness you crave.
Find peace in the fact we all feel it, we are not immune. But we now know the source
of the void and that when it seems to ache us from the inside out, that it’s the reminder that we need to bow our heads and surrender the things we think will
fill us up.
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