I was sitting in a faith based drug and gangsterism recovery program in South Africa when an overwhelming feeling of emptiness came over me. All of the sudden I felt heartbroken and wondered where the uncomfortable feeling in my gut was coming from. I soon recognized the feeling.
This was the same emotion I felt during a Young Life summer camp when I was 15. I had just decided, for myself, to follow Jesus. I had heard the greatest love story ever told of God the Father sending his Son to earth to reconcile man and God. I was overcome with sadness which was followed by an inexpressible joy when I said the most earnest prayer of my life asking Jesus to forgive me for turning my back on him. At the end of the week I was scared to go back home. I knew for a fact I had experienced the great love of God, but I was worried going home would take the love away. That I would lose it somehow.
Another time I felt this emotion was when I came home from my first mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I was 17 and had just witnessed extreme poverty and abandoned and abused orphans for the first time. My heart became sensitive to the injustices of the world. When I returned I felt helpless, with thoughts of life should not be like this and it’s not right that I have so much when those children have hardly anything and why do you let this happen God?
A few weeks later, I realized the emptiness I was experiencing in South Africa was the longing for wholeness. I know God completes hearts, he restores and makes new even the dirtiest of lives.
I had a longing for pain, death, suffering, evil, and lies to be gone. I was currently witnessing men and women struggle with drug addictions and wrestle with old habits. I wanted all of them to know God’s love and be free’d from their pain and addictions.
I was homesick for heaven.
When I get glimpses of heaven on earth they last for moments then it’s back to reality.
Those small glimpses remind me that God is real. I wouldn’t feel the emptiness if I didn’t first feel the fullness of God.
I don’t know why some people are born in America and some people are born in the Dominican Republic. I do know this world has evil in it and this is not how we were created to live.
I do not know all the thoughts of God but I do know he is madly in love with me, with us.
So madly in love that he chose to turn his back on his son, Jesus in order that he may never again turn his back on us.
God is holy and he made me, he made all of us! The empty feelings we have inside can be a great gift if we allow them to be. When we take a moment and let the overwhelming emotions of sadness bring us to our knees, God will be faithful and bring a peace from heaven to our hearts.
