Longings

I find myself listening to a song, pausing in the colors and sense of a moment in time, caught in the artist cries buried in his or her painting and realize that someone has pulled a longing thread within my soul.  It is difficult to deal with the moment; tears well in my eyes, every sense of time seems to go into suspense, and I find myself confronted with something from deep within my core.
 
I may have understood that I had this longing.  Yet, I do not think I really knew it as I do in this moment.  I may have felt the longing before, yet the intensity and overwhelming flood of whatever it is that fills my soul confronts me in a way that prevents me from turning away.  I must deal with this longing.  I must understand what is happening to me.  I must fill the emptiness within me.
 
I continue to struggle in articulating how intensely the tugs on my longings are in my life.  In the past few weeks, I have rediscovered several points of critical importance in my life.  Nothing else takes precedence.  In the confrontation that can come in looking through a lens into another’s soul, I found myself seeing and experiencing the void in my own life.  In the first moment I experienced a painting from a great artist, I found myself struggling with the tears of a father’s joy and fears. 
 
When I read God’s expression captured by another writer, “I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.”  (Isaiah 43.7)  I find myself caught in God’s love.  God’s void is my void.  God’s hope is my hope.  God’s way is my way.
 
I look forward to the day that my longings find their resolution.  The opportunity exists, with God – here, now.  I know you share some of my longings.  You also struggle with your own.  Our answer lies with a God of beauty, love, and compassion.