In The Heart of Our Darkness

My heart is filled with so much longing.

Is it the season of Advent which fills it with yearning and anticipation? Or is it the state of my being at this time? Or is it simply what it means to be human?

Regardless of the cause, I am left in the agony of waiting during these shortening winter days. In some ways, anticipation is delightful, inviting a sense of looking forward to something and a source of hope for the future. Yet in other ways it can be draining, one’s being filled with a fervent desire for a fulfillment which is not yet here and the remembrance of that lack is persistent. While we cannot change that we wait, we can change how we wait. In recent days, two things have come into my mind and heart which have invited me to consider how I’m waiting even if they don’t completely change my experience of it.

The first was a moment in prayer a few weeks ago. It can be easy for me to feel that while God has a plan for me, He has perhaps overlooked moving forward with the next step. Yet I know that God wastes nothing, forgets nothing, overlooks nothing, and is in no way negligent with any aspect of any person. So what came into my prayer was the image of my whole heart, my whole being, every drop of my present life and circumstances being poured out into His hands. Like a bucket of water, it flowed from me and was captured tenderly, completely in His cradled hands. As individual drops moved toward the edges, seemingly prepared to fall carelessly to the ground, Our Lord managed to keep them all within the crevice of His hands.

Nothing was lost.

No fleeting emotion was unworthy of His attention, no aching wound escaped His notice or care, no mundane moment of my life was devoid of His presence and acknowledgement. I’ve come back to this image many times. My whole life, the complexities of my heart, the things I love and hate are all held by Jesus. Nothing escapes His notice or loving gaze.

The second is the idea of not letting my heart be troubled. It has come up in various ways and in different devotionals I’m listening to or reading. What has caught my attention most recently is the idea of letting my heart be troubled. So perhaps my life is filled with waiting and uncertainties. At least I can strive to not be troubled by the lack of clarity, to receive what is offered from the Lord and trust that He will provide. The storm can rage around us, but we can seek to not let the storm become interior. Not being troubled becomes an incredibly active thing rather than the passive thing it might sometimes seem to be.

Yet I have also been seeking to not placate myself with false consolations, with promises I tell myself are from the Lord but which He has not made. The many martyrs throughout the history of the Church could tell themselves truly that God loves them and cares for them. However, the Lord still allowed them to suffer the death of a martyr. In reading a book about St. Jeanne Jugan, I am reminded of how the Lord permits saints to be made by being treated unjustly, dismissed and forgotten by the world, but not by Him. Eloi Leclerc, in writing about this aching part of St. Jeanne’s life, says, “The Child was born, but in the night, as in Bethlehem, God reveals himself in the heart of our darkness. His coming does not dispel the night; it transfigures it.”

This Advent has been filled with living in the tension. I am awaiting fulfillment, I am eagerly anticipating the coming of Our Lord, and yet I have so many other longings and desires which thrash about in my heart. These yearnings aren’t unimportant; the Lord holds them all tenderly in His pierced hands. Every miniscule thing which I am prone to overlook or dismiss, He is casting His loving gaze upon. He isn’t promising to fulfill all of my desires; He loves me too much to do that. Yet He is promising to satisfy the deepest desires, the desire beneath the desire which is continually on my mind, to answer the question behind the more superficial question. Into the turmoil of the heart, He is coming to bring His glorious light, to transfigure what causes suffering and pain into the very place where He reveals His profound love for me.

Maranatha.

Come, Lord Jesus.

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Photo by Rajat Verma on Unsplash