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We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. (Romans 8:23-24a
The groaning of the world is
too loud and obvious to require elaboration. No one needs to be told. The news
is more than enough. Nor need we be tutored about the groaning of our hearts for
fulfillment and a peace that does not evaporate in the gloom of gray days when
spring has been postponed.
Our all-too-human sighs are not
reason for despair, however, but the breath of morning, the early fulfillment
of our hearts’ constant craving.
For what, at deepest level, do
we long? What, if not for the love that heals the heart and stills the awful thirst
for status, glory or power that strains relationships, divides nations and
stains the earth with the blood of innocents?
What do we most deeply need, if
not for holy kindness to heal our world and engulf our hearts that we might finally
become human?
The heart’s sigh for universal
healing—our dissatisfaction with what is and who we are—is not a cry of
absence, but the presence of the Love we crave within us, longing for
fulfillment. Strange, it is, ironic, that the experience of wanting is
simultaneously an experience of the Love we most need, Love’s longing to fill all
things.
Imprinted on our souls, in the unreachable
depths of our hearts, this Love is a gift granted in our creation by the One
who is Love.
Our longings, our sighs over
life as it is, are reason for highest hope, for it means Love has not died
within, but lives in our mortal flesh; our hearts have not forgotten or been
diverted from the glory of love for which all things are created.
Knowing this, feeling this,
hope saves us from sinking into the despondency of gray days when the sun refuses to
shine, warmed as we are by the Love who does not die.
David L. Miller
