I just want to lay at Your feet
and absorb Your love, O Lord
for I am weary of this world
and long to find rest
in You.
12-21-2022 WordNerd
That is the cry of my heart. At least it was during Christmastime when life was busy and filled with visiting children and a dog. My previous, fairly solitudinous life, shattered for a while.
However, that longing has been fairly constant for me regardless of busyness. What is the cry of our heart? Humans throughout the ages wrestle with this. A yearning for something better, something more perfect, that which completes us.
Sometimes I am just so sick of this world and all the evil in it and what seems to be so few willing to fight for what is right, no matter the cost. I can relate to St. Faustina’s words in her Diary, entry 867, “O Jesus, what a dreadful wilderness this life seems to me! There is no nourishment for either my heart or my soul. I suffer because of my longing for You, O Lord.”
In all of this mental and spiritual anguish, I come to realize that nothing else really matters but Jesus. Eternal life is the reward I seek and everything else pales in comparison. That is often my reality even though it may sound depressing to some.
It’s difficult to describe, but sometimes it is as if everything dims and fades and swirls into a blur around me and there’s only Jesus. Kind of like the swirling galaxy in the photo above.
Nothing in this world seems to really matter because our life on earth is temporary. Each one of us is a tiny speck in time. Everything is changing. Everything will pass away. But it will be okay because….Jesus. What else in this world can give the same depth of contentment?
So in the meantime, this is our temporary home and we are just visitors passing through and all the earthly stuff of our lives is being crammed into a weathered suitcase, about to burst, which we won’t even need in the life to come. But I am consoled because God will triumph in the end.
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator made known through Jesus.” Wise words attributed to Blaise Pascal.
This Lent, and every day, perhaps we can come to better know this Jesus.
We can go before the cross and lay down our stuff, throw down our vices, read the Bible to learn who Jesus is, receive the Sacraments, and most importantly, just take time to lay at His feet and absorb His infinite mercy and love. Because in Him we live…eternally. There is nothing else.