Empty Spaces

Summer break is quickly coming to an end.  I always get so sad...for 3 months out of the year I live my dream of just~being~home.  The highlights of my days are un-rushed morning sun-room solitude, my afternoon siestas which are quickly followed by cafe mocha frappuccinos (SO refreshing!), my husband's delicious after-dinner smoothies, quiet evening moments just listening in the sun-room and those awesome s'mores by the fire pit.  (Seriously...is there anything more satisfying sometimes than a s'more by campfire??)  Switching into the high gear school year is by no means an easy adjustment for this authentic beach bum.  Sigh.

I also love those deep, un-rushed, unexpected conversations...about stuff that matters.  My daughter manages to shoot me some doozies; she did that the other night.  We were talking, reading the Bible and saying our prayers.  From her heart she said, "Mommy, I have an empty space inside of me."  Amazed again by her depth and puzzled at the same time, I looked into her ebony eyes and asked, "What do you mean by that honey?" She sweetly replied, "It's my birth-mother, Mommy.  I've never met her before.  And, I don't know much about her."  I asked where she had heard the phrase "empty space".  She said that she heard this in the movie, "Stuart Little".  She explained he had human parents and wanted to know about his mouse parents.  I was totally blown away that she could make that parallel to her own life...to
what she is processing right now.  So, we talked at length.  It was one of those private conversations I will hide in my heart forever.  I know God is speaking to her and will fill her "empty space"...sometime, somehow and in His perfect way.  I'm doing much better at keeping her in Jesus' lap and arms where she belongs.

So, I've continued to think on this.  You know...we all have those "empty spaces" in our lives.  Questions, unfulfilled dreams, failures, regrets, painful memories, loss, longings.  Sometimes we can't explain our empty spaces so we look for things, food, substances, addictions...whatever it is...to fill those voids.  We run along the beach chasing after the wind.

I absolutely love that Jesus often used water as his teaching medium.  In the story about the woman at the well, Jesus tells this woman she would never have to thirst again...for his water is living water.  He longed to fill every "empty space" inside of her and cease her search in a way she had never experienced before.  There are countless examples in the Bible where Jesus reaches out and touches those empty spaces in other's lives.  He could see straight through...into those hidden spots.

I have empty spaces that I long to be filled.  How 'bout you?  Jesus can reach in and do that for us.  He wants nothing more than to make us whole.

a Cape Henlopen, DE seagull claims this "empty space"
August, 2015