Why Longing is Messy

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy

shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

(Psalm 23)

I slept hard, woke groggy, fumbled my way through a bowl of cereal, and managed the coffee maker. Then I spilled my entire first cup on the counter. All of it.

As I began sopping up the hot brown lake, I thought to myself, "This is exactly like attending to longings in a broken world. There is the promise, a wonderful aroma, and the promise is true. We haven't imagined it. God placed it there in the design of everything. But try to pour it into your cup and there the trouble starts."

I'm so tired because I chased a dream, a longing, a vision of how we could make a difference. It's been trouble all the way. Messy every day. For five years.

I keep spilling my longing all over the wrong places. I frequently burn myself. I've developed blisters and a few scars. My cup is cracked and chipped. Sometimes I despair that it will ever be right, that I will ever be right, that there is any point to trying.

Oh, we're doing okay. Our health is good. We love each other. Although I figure I may end with everything burned off me except the clothes on my back.

The vision wasn't for me. It was for others. I dared to say yes and I dared to start doing and it still hasn't worked. In fact, nothing has worked out like I thought it should. I'm at the point where I feel embarrassed and a bit silly. And exhausted. Which brings me back to this morning.

Why does life get so ugly when we try to do something in earnest? Why do I get so ugly? I told my husband that I think I have lost proper perspective. I'm over-reacting to every event. I'm inappropriate -- can that be a character quality? If it is, I have it.

Why?

Because I'm broken, too. I was designed to live in a beautiful garden in perfect fellowship with God and my loved ones. Without suffering or sorrow or meanness around me. But that is not where I live. And I am not what I would have been, because of my sin. The sinful habits in me hold on hard.

That's the rub, more than anything else. In the deep places of our hearts we long for the things we were made for in our original design: love, fellowship, significance, peace, goodness, joy, beauty, meaningfulness. The longing is not bad. It's good. But we live in a very different world than the one we were designed for. And we ourselves are no longer just as God made us. We have added the presence of sin which changes everything we touch.

If you've ever wondered why Jesus had to die on the cross, this is why: someone had to save us from ourselves; otherwise there was no hope of it. We were in no condition to rescue anyone. It's not just forgiveness that we need: we need a new life. Otherwise, we will drown in the froth of our own mixture of fleshliness and fear.

Fortunately, he has paid for our sins and carried us with him into death and life and glory beyond. It's all ours if we receive the gift. If we say, "Jesus, I receive you. Thank you for saving me. Please be my Lord."

And then the reconstruction begins.

For we are a glorious ruin, just as our world is a glorious ruin. Worth saving, but in need of drastic measures. We have "lost our truth," just as an old house does. We must submit to the skill of our Master Carpenter. I think our longings likewise must submit to his ministrations.

For we do not know what to do with our longings, where to take them, how to know if they are right. And when we begin moving in the direction of the deepest desires of our hearts, we will experience hard things.

But this is exactly what the life which is truly life does: it presses us into an existence which, at this moment, can feel quite uncomfortable. It's not what we're accustomed to. It's new.

The process of renovating a life is messy.

How you encountered "messiness" as you approach the desires of your heart? Is it difficult sometimes to know if what you long for is right and how to pursue it?

Lift Up My Soul

A sliver of light cracks open the night sky and I'm awake. I fumble for my light spring robe, shrug it over my shoulders. Usually I am my happiest in the first hour of the day: I anticipate possibilities. But not today.

I'm hungry. I shuffle to the kitchen and find a bowl and fill it with granola. The baked oat flakes clink like coins against the glass sides. I add strawberries and milk. Then I set up the coffee maker. Brown like newly tilled earth, coffee grounds in a small heap comfort me with their fragrance. What is it about coffee that makes us feel better? I was reading recently that a strong cup of coffee is the most popular comfort for hard times.

For that's what I have here: hard times.

They come to all of us. They will come to you, too, unless you are in that very tiny percentage of people who lead an untroubled life.

Here's the thing: for over two years, I kept thinking mine would end. That they were temporary.

But it's not over yet. I'm more challenged to live by faith than I ever have been. I feel as though I've dived into thin air over a cliff and I'm still in free fall.

Try living in free fall for two years. It does things to your sense of balance.

Where is my longing in all of this? What role does it play? Do I even have room for it anymore?

This is precisely where the devil can take us down. We decide that life is so hard, we've no room for longing. We've no energy for it. So we shut down. We batten our souls, so we are like houses shuttered and boarded against a hurricane. Our lives are one hurricane after another.

To notice my longing and be fully alive in it, I must open up my house. God help me, I must open it up. I must let myself feel what is happening to me. I must let myself remember what I truly, deep in my heart, want most and not give up on it.

God help me, I must do it.

Otherwise, I will dry up and blow like dust in the wind. Like coffee grounds when I accidentally breathe hard on them. I shut the coffee filter in and push the button for brewing. But I do not know how to go on any longer. I do not know how.

Tears lie under the surface of my skin, but I am dry as bone when I take my cereal to the table and open my Bible and read:

Hear my prayer, O Lord;

give ear to my pleas for mercy!

In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness! . . .

For the enemy has pursued my soul;

he has crushed my life to the ground;

he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.

Therefore my spirit faints within me;

my heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old;

I meditate on all that you have done;

I ponder the work of your hands.

I stretch out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O Lord!

My spirit fails!

Hide not your face from me,

lest I be like those who go down to the pit.

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,

for in you I trust.

Make me know the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.

(Psalm 143)

Had Jesus appeared and sung for me with a guitar, it could not be more piercing. God has not told me what he will do, but he has shown me how he weeps with me, waits with me, yearns with me. How do I lift my soul? That's what I'm pondering.

How do you lift up your soul?

(Photograph of stone cairn pointing the way on a path near Sam's Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway, copyright 2011 by Cassandra Frear)

Doubt

Nothing is certain in our circumstances. We're taking chances here. Maybe that's always true, but this time I know what we're doing and how it might not succeed. I can think of how we might suffer.

My world is churning. I'm on a rolling ship in choppy waters. Storms edge by on the horizon and then move on. But they are nearly always there, a reminder of what might happen.

I could talk about Jesus and the disciples in the boat, how he walked on waves like they were a field of grass, then Peter decided to try walking on water and it worked fine until he thought about it too much. (Matthew 14) Another time, a storm came up. Jesus slept, of all things, and when roused, he told the sky to be still and it obeyed. (Mark 4)

But I'm not finding the retelling helpful. Nor am I comforted by other Bible stories. Because this is happening to me, this is my story, and it will not go like everyone else's. That's the hardest part about walking through a story I am living: I don't get to decide how it ends.

And that's the hardest thing about facing our longings. We don't get to decide what happens to them. We have to trust that God knows best, that his choices about what to do with them are really what's needed.

Sometimes I think I don't quite believe it. Oh I have faith-filled moments, like this morning when I was waking up. As soon as I was conscious, I felt I was surrounded with a gentle Presence which was very comforting, a Presence who knew me and understood. All was well with the world, nevermind any storm.

But somewhere over cereal and coffee and the morning news, doubt returned. Do I matter? Does God care about my little dreams? Have I been selfish to think of them? What if I've been kidding myself and building castles in the air? Do they even have a place in my life? Is it too much? Have I expected more than was wise?

Are you sometimes torn between trusting God with a longing and wondering if it was good for you to have the longing in the first place? Does fear or dread creep into your thoughts when you try to address something you long for?

Quiet Time in a Garden

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden to cultivate it and to keep it.

(Genesis 1:15)

“In half an hour,” my husband says, “we should probably go home.” But I want to stay.

I’m just getting started. It’s not his fault. Truth is, I’ve taken two hours to shed daily weight from my shoulders, to feel it cascade off my body like an outer skin, to touch my soul. Chores, deadlines, fears, uncertainties, frustrations, they numb me to myself.

They must be put in their proper place, caged where they can blink at me but not speak, waiting until I open the door to let them out again. I have to move past them to find a place to write from -- that spot where I know what I think, how to hear my heart beat, what to pray. It takes time and attention.

I wasn’t sure where to go today to leave a distance between me and them. But the Botanical Garden was just around the corner and after a short drive, we were strolling under entrance gates, along woodland boardwalks, into walled gardens.

There I found a wooden bench, gray and soft from summer sun and winter rains. Radiating from it were brick paths and drifts of pansies in yellow, blue, and white. Behind it a soldiers’ row of daffodils lifted their yellow flags in attention. In front, a weeping cherry tree cascaded up and over us in a flurry of fluff, like a ballerina in pink tulle. Cardinals chattered and rustled in winter jasmine bushes spilling their lemony scent on light breezes. Beyond, by splashing fountains, beds of coral tulips beckoned.

Sun warming my back, I peeled off my shoes and socks, sat on the brick edging and stretched my legs along a shady path under a tree. I was hemmed in by water and fragrance and color and sky. It was almost as though I was back in my old garden where I dug deep into the joy of growing things, into wonder and earth and morning light.

There on that brick path by the pansies, I touched my longing and turned it over in my mind. I was made for a garden. Though sin has stained me, it cannot remove my original design.

“One day,” I murmured to my husband, “I hope to have a garden like this.”

One day you will. The thought interrupts me now, a hour later in this coffee shop at a round table with steaming cup and pen at hand. It nestles against me like a persistent child who won’t be hushed. One day you will, here with my ache still standing tall as a tulip waving merrily and solemnly at me, and I know what it means.

One day you will. Would God whisper a passing thought like this, between cups of coffee by a late afternoon window staring at me like a portal into another world?

I can choose. I can stop to ponder or push on to other tasks. Busy life calls. But this time, I turn to face it.

“Yes. Thank you, Father. It is good to be known.You have given us all good things to enjoy.” Faint, whispered under my breath, but it is a thing I say. I respond with heart open and unfinished.

Will I have a garden? I cannot be sure, and yet --

Even though I now sit somewhere between longing and fulfillment, and it throbs like a splinter in my flesh, I know I’m more alive. I have confessed. I have admitted my hunger, and I have trusted God to know and respond in time.

Have you ever had to trust God to respond to a longing which you could not satisfy?

Facing our Longings

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

- Luke 8:17

I had been writing and reading and networking since breakfast. It was mid-afternoon when I suddenly looked at the clock and felt wide awake. If I was going to walk, it would be now or never.

A storm was coming in.

I shoved my feet into my shoes, tying white laces over white socks, sprinting out the door and down the stairs with hair flying. I did not even take time for a coat.

The wind hit me like a wall. I could barely walk. A slate gray sky stooped low. Small, scalloped clouds escaped from it to roll over tree tops. All was movement and I was moving with it. Earth was rolling under this force bending it like a bow. The gale was a near roar in my ears. Overhead, pine boughs looked like they would snap in two and crash down on my head.

At any moment, it could all break loose. We could come undone. I walked against and in spite of it, tense and exhilarated. To be so near, yet not in the storm was a kind of glory. I was tempted to lie down along my path like a child, to see if I could press my ear to the ground and hear thunder roll.

But I could only keep going like this for a short while. Half an hour later, I headed back for the door. Before long, I needed a nap. Pushing against a thrashing wind is extremely tiring. All the while, I could not stop thinking about our chats on longing. I even dreamed of it when I dozed, back inside, out of danger.

Entering a journey into longing can be a lot like walking against an incoming storm. It's nearly impossible to talk about longing without talking about our sorrow, sin, and uncertainty.

Longing can be a fearful place. The first time I admitted to myself that I had any unfulfilled longings, which I didn't know would ever be answered, I was terrified. I was not sure I could open myself to it and not come undone.

I thought my hunger would swallow me up.

Have you ever experienced anxiety over admitting how you felt about something? Or do you know someone who has? Why do you think we might be intimidated, even terrified of examining our longings?

If you would like to write about facing your longings at your own blog, I'd be happy to insert a link to your post below. Just put a link at your own blog, so readers can find our discussion here, too.

• Kelly Sauer: Tornado

A Table By the Window

Here's a table for two by the window. We can see the view, but we're snug in a corner where we can really talk.

I've ordered a muffin and coffee. What will you have? The tea is very good.

So how have you been?

Life has been challenging for me, but I think I'm doing okay. I'm a bit worn down under all the pressure and uncertainty of the last two years, but the sun is shining and spring is coming. I feel that I will be fresh again one day.

Do you use sugar or cream? Here are some napkins. I always need extra. This is a really good muffin, by the way. I can order another if you'd like one.

I've been wanting to talk about something a bit deeper than the usual. Chatting about every day stuff is fun. But I've been wanting to do something a little more focused and thoughtful, something that will encourage.

What exactly do I mean?

This is the simplest way I can put it. I want to talk about the life we all dream of -- you know, the one playing like background music behind our thoughts, the vision hanging just out of reach, the yearning which won't go away, no matter how much we try to be satisfied with what we have.

Most of the time, we don't like to think about it. But actually, paying attention to our deepest longings can help us. Our desires for a fuller life are there for a reason. In the long run, we'll be stronger and more joyful if we look at what they are and talk about why they matter.

Okay, I guess this will take a while. But I don't mind if you don't.

Following the thought first penned by a famous modern author: if you were suddenly transported and woke up in the new life you long for, what would be one of the first signs to you that you are there?