Where Do You Go with Your Deep Longing?

For the most part, I know the right things to say because I’ve said them a million times before to myself and others. I know the right things to do because I’ve advised others and can recognize the patterns within my own life. I can maturely process my emotions. And yet, a part of me still places my future happiness on other people, places, and situations, and I can become anxious or disappointed when my hope in them is dashed.

Maybe for you the longing for a spouse is overwhelming or even excruciating. Or maybe it’s a longing for a child, a job, a bill of good health, or a new stage or milestone in life. And maybe you, too, know all of the “right things” to say, do, and think to dull the yearning and remember that our hope comes from and is in the Lord alone.

But when the ache is deep, the wait is long, and God seems so distant and far away, to whom, what, or where do you turn?

God reminds us in the First Reading of Jeremiah that nothing will ever love, satisfy, or fulfill us but Him. And still, in one of the greatest moments of compassion, He shares full knowledge of our struggle.

“More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

God knows that our hearts and minds are finicky and fickle and that we can barely understand ourselves. As we read in Romans, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15). He knows how much we want to be completely devoted to Him and also that the dreams we aspire to have or accomplish are a sign of our greatest hope of Heaven.

He lovingly reminds us that, "I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10). He knows us more than we know ourselves, and He is fully aware of our needs.

Sister, this isn’t meant to placate you but to encourage both myself and you to trust our deepest desires, longings, yearnings, aches, pains, and timelines into the hands of God. He is knowledge itself, and He knows what He is doing.

He knows what He is doing. // @chikasworldClick to tweet

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