"When you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able to take that loneliness away, if only for a moment. When you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless, your heart wants only one thing–to be with the person who once was able to dispel these frightful emotions. But it is the absence itself, the emptiness within you, that you have to be willing to experience, not the one who could temporarily take it away. When you can acknowledge your loneliness in a safe, contained place, you make your pain available for God’s healing."
We all have to get to this place...when we can bring this kind of pain to Jesus and allow His love to fill the empty places. It's sometimes far easier said than done. I just know He desires me to come as I am, even if that means empty and numb and scared and lonely.
I'm grateful He finds me beautiful, even in that condition.
"A broken and contrite heart you will not despise." -- Psalm 51:17
It is true that God takes the pains of our hearts and bodies and understands them. He also made us for human relationships. He wants the love of our deepest human relationships to mirror His love for us - ultimately in the marriage relationship.
ReplyDeleteAs one single all my life and as one who draws near to God for all my needs and I know He loves me deeply and I love HIm even in my weaknessed to seek to love Him more - the two needs are different. He made them different ( imho ).
Ask the widow who is greiving the closenss that filler her life for decades and who also loves the Lord. She will always long for and miss the human nearness of the husband God gave her. God may ease her pain but He cannot take the place of the void that remains in her heart.
It is a delicate balance and drawing close to God is important in the pains of life - whatever levle they come. I just do not experience the human and the divine relationships as one trumping the other. My love for God will not displace the longing for the human relationship/s He created me to have. But He will see me through when the human relationship is gone or is not possible or when the disappointments of a human relationship are present. One will not replace the other. To me that is a form of denial.
Henri Nouwen was a seeker all his life who loved the Lord but chose to live a celibate life rather than go against the God's ordained word - as Nouwen was a homosexual. The seeking was for the missed human relationship. His life with the Lord was solid.
"Holding somebody in such high regard can be tantamount to idolatry."
ReplyDelete- B. LeStrange