The place of great longing

I heard a quote one time, and I'm going to botch it because I really don't remember much of it, or even who said it, so bear with me. This quote talked about our greatest ability to see God is when we open up our places of great longing and let Him in.

Lately it seems that those places of longing keep opening wider and wider in my life. Someone said something to me today, and it doesn't matter who or what, because it was an innocent comment. But that comment touched me in a raw place of longing, one I don't admit to many people, and I've yet to admit to anyone just how much it means to me. I don't even think I've admitted it to myself.

You see, to admit to myself how badly I want this thing would mean that I'd have to be willing to face the very real reality that I may not get it. And before you think you know what I'm talking about, I promise you don't. Because I don't tell anyone. I can't. It hurts too much to lay this longing out there, to allow anyone, including myself, to inspect it. So I bury it, and pretend it's not there.

But today, as often happens with our hidden longings, someone cracked open the door to that secret place. And my heart began to hurt. I've spent the day alternating between the hope of receiving my longing, and the fear that it will never come. And, if I'm really honest, the even deeper fear of actually getting what I want.

It is a raw, raw place.

I thought about all the people I could talk to- and I realized that not one could possibly understand this longing. How can they understand a dream I don't even understand? Especially when it sounds as crazy as this? So I climbed into the lap of the only one who could- and I prayed.

I don't have answers to this longing. I've begged for God to either fill it or take it away. On the surface, I have everything I should want. And I am grateful. Which is why this thing lurking in my heart haunts me so much.

Tonight, as I pray about this longing, and I ask for God to do something with it, the quote from above keeps going through my head. Only God can meet me in this deep, dark place. And I have to wonder if the reason I continue to struggle with this longing is not so much the thing in question, but the fact that it is something only God and I share. Random moments drag me to my knees because He is the only person I can go to with the emotions that I can't share with anyone else. It is a place of ultimate reliance on God.

God, I know you see inside my heart. Even things I can't see or understand. I know you hold me in your hand and cry with me. It isn't the answer to my prayer, but for now, it is enough.