Saturday, October 27, 2007

Fidgety Loneliness

My wife is gone for the night visiting a friend up north. So, after playing with the kids and doing a few things around the house (in case you're reading this, Katie, I did do the laundry!) I thought that I'd go to bed. Well, I made it to bed, alright...but not to sleep.

Isn't it weird how we get so used to being close to someone that we cannot function properly when they're not there? It's like when you dive deep into the water and you don't realize how uncomfortable not being able to breathe is until your lungs start to burn and you start to stretch for the surface of the water, aching for that ecstatic moment when you break through the surface and inhale all the heavens into your lungs. Missing someone is like that.

When Katie is gone I get fidgety. I wriggle and itch and hear myself breathing (I'm not sure how she puts up with me, by the way. I just realized that I'm very annoying at night). I talk to myself and no matter how long I lay there, I simply cannot sleep. So, here I am at 2:09am, fidgeting.

What shocks me is really how often that I take her presence for granted. She's simply there, being a great wife and mother, a beautiful daughter of God, but I come to expect that and not really appreciate her and her beauty in my life. I guess that's a good thing about being away for a night. Reality. Just like breathing, we don't realize how sweet air is until we cannot have it.

Maybe this is part of what the Lord said through Jeremiah when He told us that the heart is so deceitful and desperately wicked. We are so prone to take beauty and blessings for granted, until the Lord takes them all away. Then we realize how truly gracious that He is. He does the same thing with sin. He gave us over to sin so that we would see and feel the emptiness and return to Him. In a sense, He gives us what we are wanting, knowing that it will not fulfill this deep God-shaped hole within us. Even His judgments are from a gracious heart. I so don't deserve His kindness. So, I look for the discipline of the Lord until the sweet sweet breath of His glorious grace fills my heart again and I realize how truly beautiful He is and again delight in Him.

I so don't deserve my Katie's kindness, either, but I rejoice in her love. And, I cannot wait for my love to return, to delight in her again, for her presence to fill my evenings with life...and sleep.

To the Glory of God

2 comments:

godsthinker said...

I couldn't help but notice, you said you were fidgeting at 2:09am, but it was posted at 2:04am. I found a funny, maybe because it's 1:35am...

godsthinker said...

I found it funny,(not, found a funny) the lateness is getting to my grammar skills