Empty...

From our window, we can see a massive magpie nest.  We watched the industrious pair building it. I, for one, was looking forward to the chirping of baby birds and the flights of frantic parents feeding them.

But it didn't happen.  No sounds. No flurry.

Life can be like that. 

Promise fails to pan out. Hope shrivels with time. And all that seems to be 'present' is a pervasive emptiness of soul, heart, mind... Depression might result.  Lack of joy, most certainly, does result.

Having lost the ability to have children, my life once looked like that empty nest -- prepared but empty.  For many of you, it might be similar.

But life has a way of turning corners.  My husband and I eventually adopted.  The great joy of a fulfilled purpose with that busy nest was given to us. 

But not all are.  One thing is for certain. That is when I learned more about myself, life, and others than at any other time previously. 

That pain, experienced in lack, tends to make us sensitive; we learn to identify with others who also suffer loss, whatever type they may be enduring.

My eyes were opened to others. We of the empty nest suffer lack, and that lack then allows us to observe more than our own busy goings on, the very ones we so desired.

There is no magic cure for that emptiness, but I urge you to learn what you can while in that state.

If you thought you could be happy having that one missing thing, person, job, etc., then you might see it has become an idol of sorts, your only desire.  That is knowledge about yourself you need to realize. Only God can fill that central place in our hearts.

If you thought God must not love you because you are lacking the one thing you have begged him for, then you might see that you have put conditions on Him and what you will accept.  You just might be judging God and finding Him lacking. 

Lack makes us think, and not always constructively, especially about Him, especially when the lack creates bitterness...

What can we do?  Come to Him with it.  He accepts complaints, tears, cries, and all. To find our way out of emptiness, we need him, and that spot to be filled.  

Only He can do that, and most generously, He fills it with Himself first of all. Then, just maybe, it will become evident that after He has filled it, the pain is different.  Then He shows us what to put in that place, that hole in our heart, as well.

The emptiness life has given us can be redeemed, bought out.  Only Christ can do that. So seek Him and receive what HE has in store for the emptiness.

No open heart is empty. No open soul suffers lack.  Being open to God means we are never lacking what we need for long.