“You know what I long for, Lord; You hear my every sigh.” (Psalm 6:3 NLT)
I cried a little last night. My facebook feed was filled with the cherubic faces of my younger friends’ children and my older friends’ grandchildren in costumes and candy-laden. I am just recently launched into the abyss between motherhood and grand-motherhood and my heart feels the lack of mooring.
For me, empty nest grief has come in little spurts. We’ve been so busy buying a house and revitalizing a church that most of the time I’m ok. But every once in a while, the quiet creeps in and hunts me down. Twenty years slipped by in what felt like a matter of moments. We raised two very independent people; I doubt they are coming back for much more than Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas presents at this point. It’s okay, I get it. I was the same way at 17 and 20, raring to go live my own life. We’ve raised them well and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All that said, I miss having little people. I miss diving headfirst into their world of imagination; wiki g together to bring their fabulous ideas to fruition. The kids and I had so much scheming around the holidays: whether we were assembling an outfit or decorating ornaments or composing a church skit. The house feels empty without their constant enthusiasm and lust for life. I can see how Rob and I might become old fuddy-duddies left to our own devices. Like I said, I cried a little.
I realize I have a choice in these moments of vacuous void, in the onslaught of silence that follows the fury of child-rearing. I can be gutted or I can be grateful. Gutted is the temptation: it feels a bit like the best years of my life have blown by in a series of fabulous storms named Sarah and Eli. I could start considering damages and calculating costs and stay sad for years to come. Or I can acknowledge my feelings and take them to the throne room, remembering what a gift it was to parent these two precious souls. Yes, I would have liked to have more – more children and more time – but the Lord filled my heart completely for exactly two decades. How can I ask for more than that? I fight through the longing in my heart with gratitude for what I’ve already had.
It’s funny, for me (and maybe most moms) motherhood has been bookended by longing. Rob and I struggled to get pregnant and stay pregnant for the first eight years of marriage. Eli was long awaited and Sarah was the two thin lines of hope on the pregnancy test after the atrocity of multiple miscarriages. There was much longing before our children came into our lives. It makes sense that there would be renewed longing as we learn to let go. When we long for people, even people we have not yet met, it means we love them dearly.
I consider scripture and the mothers I have found within it’s pages. There is a long list of barren women well-acquainted with longing: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth and even Samson’s mother (unnamed by not unseen by God). Similarly, there’s a list of ladies reluctant to let go: Rebekah, Bathsheba, Mary and even Miriam with her brother in the basket.
The older I get, the more I’m convinced: we always want what we can’t have. We obsess about what is just out of reach, utterly convinced that with it’s capture we’d finally find contentment. I have friends who have thriving careers and checking accounts yet they long to chunk it all for full-time motherhood. I have other friends who homeschool on a shoestring budget and the major temptation is putting kids in public and rejoining the workforce. I have still other friends without children who want nothing more than to find themselves pregnant. And friends who have a house full of toddlers and all they want today is to pee in peace.
We want what we don’t have right now.
Longing is a part of living. And maybe in order to live well, we need to take all those longings to the Lord and trust that He is shaping our stories as He sees fit. When we bring our longings to Him, we discover that the satisfaction of all our longing is found in Him alone. Apart from Him, we will always be a least a little unhappy, unsettled and unfulfilled. If we let our longings drive us into His presence, we might be surprised at how He satisfies.
“When You open Your hand, you satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.” (Psalm 145:16 NLT)
Lord, please give us the courage to bring all our longings to You. Help us sort them through in Your presence. Let our greatest longing be found and fulfilled in You. We trust Your sovereignty and surrender to Your superintendence of our story. Amen.