The Beauty of My Emptiness

Lupus life is hard. I'm not going to lie. 

Still, I've completed two books since my last blog post, and I've written two proposals. I've seen cover art for two projects and copy edited two others.

I've dutifully walked ten-thousand steps every day, driven kids all over creation, corrected school work, vacuumed floors, dusted furniture, washed clothes. 

I've had conversations with people I love, and I've had conversations with people I don't know.

I've met a stranger and learned his name, and now I call him Ricardo when I pass him on the street. He calls me Sweetie, and we smile. 

I've been living my life while you've been living yours. Some days are good and some days are hard, and some days it seems like too much effort to even stand. 

Today is Sunday. 

I have been to church. I have sung the songs. I have listened to the sermon, and I have heard the word of God spoken with reverence, but now I am sitting, because my feet hurt, my knees ache, my fingers throb when I type. My inner ear inflammation is back and I list to the right when I walk. I feel as if I'm staggering around like a drunken sailor. 

Truth? I am at the crossroads of self-pity and faith, and only I can choose which direction to turn.

So, I sit and listen to the silence and find the stunning beauty of my emptiness. 

Empty things can be filled, I tell myself. Broken vessels can be mended.  Beauty can be found in the ugliness, if we look hard enough. 

Even when I am so tired I cannot stand, I know these things are true. It is in our very imperfection and incompleteness that God meets us. It is in our emptiness, in our silence, in our deep need for connection, that He makes Himself known. 

He is the God of the broken.

And, we are all broken vessels waiting to be mended and filled. 

That is good to remember on a day like today.

It is good to remember always.

How exquisite your love, O God!

    How eager we are to run under your wings,

To eat our fill at the banquet you spread

    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.

You’re a fountain of cascading light,

    and you open our eyes to light. ~Psalm 36:7-9