In the Darkness

She just wants to belong. He wants to feel safe again. She just wants to feel accepted. They want trust and intimacy. My clients are teaching me, reminding me, making me more and more aware of the deep longing in our hearts for connection.

What a beautiful thing that we are made to connect. We are made to be able to sense the feelings, attitudes, needs of others and the vulnerability there is in others accepting our own. It is beautiful and it is incredibly painful. I suppose that is why hell is not just about fire or pain or suffering...but about the severing of connection. Why depression isolates. Why anxiety makes us feel alone. Why things are traumatic because they sever and abuse and destroy connection and safety.

In this season of advent I have been more aware of the darkness. The darkness that comes with waiting. The grief there is in hopes deferred. The questions of "where are you?" I can't imagine what those 400 years of silence were like when it seemed the Messiah would never come. Prophet after prophet, promise after promise...where are you Lord? I though you would save?

Then, Jesus. He came...as a little tiny baby. Didn't seem like what I would expect for an entrance to save the world. Like a little lamb that's supposed to destroy a mountain. It seems ridiculous. Ha! God loves the ridiculous because he loves surprising us. That's how we know it's him.

During this season of Advent, I have also been aware of the the second advent--Jesus coming again. We have been talking about this at church and it has hit me tremendously that we really ARE in a story. We are again, waiting. Not alone, not silently (thank you Jesus) but still, waiting. Things are not RIGHT yet. There is still evil, darkness, pain, suffering, confusion, and LONGING. I have been so surprised and in awe of God's tremendous PATIENCE. How can he wait so patiently? The longing I feel or that my clients feel does not even compare to the longing in his heart. And still, he waits. He wants all to hear, to have a chance at knowing him. He will wait until the perfect time. And then...he will COME. He is faithful, he is true...he Promised.

So while we wait in darkness, we can connect together. It is not perfect. We still feel pain and rejection. But it is a taste of the joy of what is to come. I have hope. I can offer hope to her, to him, to them. This is not the end. It is only the beginning.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecc 3:11