on longing

This longing, this ache, is a work of redemption - it’s what this fallen life is supposed to feel like...this longing is it what I was made for.

The longing - the desire for “unity, communion" - reflects the image of my God - He longs for the same.  The ache - the physical bodily struggle with the incompleteness of that desire, is appropriate and faithful and good but NOT what I was made for...not what we were made for.  We were not made for incomplete desires, for lacking wholeness - but that is where we are, broken and aching to be complete...fixed...whole.

In being single, and living this crazy missionary life, there is, in me, a longing for partnership in sharing it with another person.  Another person who is in it for the long haul with you, where you go they go, where you stay they stay.  We have this to an extent with teammates, they know how crazy the life is, and why I even call it “crazy.”  They know the paradoxes of joy and frustration.  They know the things about culture that are hard to explain in words.  They learn to know you, they learn to know what ticks you off, they learn what you’re sensitive about, they learn what kinds of movies and music you gravitate towards.  But there is a place in which this knowing ends; in which coming and going and change happens - when we least expect it and could never have predicted it; in which there is a lack of shared experience of situations/circumstances on both sides of the proverbial pond; and its in these places where loneliness puts its feet up and makes itself at home.  Its inevitable, it’s part of the “crazy” of this life.  It’s not an organizational failing, it’s not a lack of foresight, it’s not anyone’s fault, it just is.

The thing is, this longing...this desire for unity and communion exists in every stage and phase of life.  It’s not a thing that people without spouses have cornered the market on.  Having a spouse means longing for knowing and being known more deeply; having children means longing for them to know and be known, love and be loved, rejoice and know contentment and health and “success” (whatever that looks like for them); not being able to have children means longing to have them and the ability to be fruitful in the ways that God created our bodies to be able to do so; not having a spouse and not longing for one means longing for communion and unity in the community around us, and with God and many other things as well. We were made for longing.  Lisa Graham McKinn says it well, 

“In our fundamental longing for unity, communion, and consummation, we simultaneously reflect imago Dei and, whether or not we know it, we are yearning ultimately for the One who can satisfy our deepest longing to be known and loved.”

Somehow this is comforting.  It’s comforting to know it’s a “supposed to be there” experience, not a “you’ve got something majorly wrong with you” experience, it is a “positive” experience, not a “negative” experience. It’s comforting to know a camaraderie across the details of such an experience.  It has given me a new found sense of unity with my friends and family whose lives are so very different from mine.

I think this is one of those things that I’ve possibly been hearing my whole life, but it’s been just now that I’ve really *heard* it, that my heart has really engaged with it.  There has been freedom in the hearing.  Freedom to long without being so angsty about it all, freedom to talk about it because it’s something everyone can relate to in one way or another.

Not that I have it all figure out, or anything, don’t get me wrong.  McKinn also says the following:

“Living in grace bridges the chasm between our longings and our inability to satisfy those longings.  We have a yearning that ultimately only God can satisfy, yet God extended grace to humanity by creating us with a desire for relationship that extends to others.”

Okay great, key phrase seems to be “living in grace”...what the heck does that mean?  Or better yet, look like?

Something she says later on makes me wonder if this is a *part* of the answer:

“Henri Nouwen speaks of compassion as being able to sit with those who suffer.  We do not much care to sit with suffering but would rather escape it, using Advil to escape physical pain and TV, movies, daydreams, shopping, and a variety of addictions to escape emotional pain.  To extend grace is to be willing to sit with brokenness rather than escape or fix it - to look at and own our failure.  God redeems and restores that which is broken and calls us to be hands and feet of mercy, easing the suffering of others.  We learn something of our human condition and our need for God when we sit with our suffering and with those who suffer.”

Hm.  I think she’s onto something there...not yet sure of what exactly, but it’s rattling around in my head and heart and it seems to ring true based on my experience of sitting with those who are suffering and in my own...

That suffering’s not going anywhere really, it just looks different for everyone and different in different stages in life.  McKinn again, 

“...the woman whose hemorrhaging Jesus healed had spent twelve years seeking help.  Part of her journey wards healing was to crawl toward Jesus in the midst of a throng of people where she hoped to touch the hem of his robe.  Some of us will be crawling still until we reach heaven, where all symphonies are completed, all wounds are healed, all tears dried.  Sometimes we need to receive a grace that allows us to endure and embrace suffering from which we may never be healed in ways we hope...when we accept suffering and embrace our incompleteness, we experience more fully the grace of a God who invites us, woos us, lures us into communion with God and others.”

Crawling until heaven? whoah.  maybe.  hm.  whoah.  But symphonies completed, wounds healed, tears dried?  Sign me up.