Empty

I made it through the holidays in one piece. I think that overall, I'm handling myself well. It is difficult not to get cynical and jaded. There's a verse that relates to me right now:

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

- Romans 5:3

However, that is only if we choose to let our "sufferings" produce good things in our lives. If we fight it, we lose the benefits and lose our selves to it's harsh conditioning. It an unfair fight and a battle that your will must lose in order to embrace the love that God is offering to ease the pain of long standing, painstakingly long waiting. It's in the waiting that we see that we are powerless against the world around us and subject to a God that is in charge. I can only control the matters that I can control. I can work to better my habits, my body, my conditioning, my everything- but in the end it's only God that can form life and share that with me.

That's humbling. I can get my weight perfect, my diet perfect, my environment perfect, my timing perfect, yet it is still not in my hands other than giving God room to move. So I'm at this place of submission. But if I choose to fight against where God will lead me, I will chafe and continue to grow empty. If I choose to reject the things He hands me daily to bless me and let go of the promise that He has not forgotten me, the sparrow, then I will grow empty. If I choose to count the number of couples around me having beautiful babies and compare their holiness to mine, I will continue to grow empty.

There is an emptiness that God grants me. This is the emptiness that allows me to see Him and feel His presence in my life. This is the emptiness that pushes me onward into His arms because I have no where else to go. Like the disciples that have gone before Him, I cling to His side. (verse) This is the emptiness that allows me to become full again. These are the very moments when I can see distinctly that I am human, full of emotion and flesh, and God has granted me vision, desire, peace and a plan. However convoluted the journey seems. It is one that I alone must make. Even my beloved cannot help me here. It's a place only God and I sit, right now in darkness, but eventually the morning will find us.

This is how I must interpret these days. Though it feels at times more like being dragged where I do not want to go (John 21.18). At times I feel that God alone can help me and fix me, but has decided to test me instead. This is the other side of empty. The ugly, self absorbed and hungry side. This empty demands what it cannot have and accuses those that can have it. This is an empty with a lid that allows nothing to enter and nothing to leave. It's the epitome of lonliness and full of the deceit that God has abandoned me for any number of justified reasons.

I am empty. Figuratively, emotionally, spiritually, increasingly... However, it is the type of empty that I embrace that will give me the fullness of life that was promised to me. To pour myself out and look to God to fill me back up when I have nothing reserved for me. It's a full dependence and reliance on a God that has lately only been a whisper beyond my ears. But I know Him and I will wait on Him... through this very long night.