So. It's a tiny bit past midnight, and as often happens after a long conversation with my best friend, I'm finding it hard to wind down and sleep right this minute. And so here I am, writing a post that I already had a name and a concept for, but is mostly a messy ball of ideas at the moment. So thank you in advance for reading this in its very raw form. Hopefully it will be coherent enough now and be part of something more polished later.
Before I left to come overseas and teach homeschool this year, I was talking to some guy friends of mine about how I find it really easy to swing from being hopeless (I'm never going to find anyone or No one will like me anyway) to obsessed (I have found the person I want and now they have to like me back, they just have to). Neither mindset is one I want to be in. Both of them make me miserable, albeit in different ways, but still miserable. When I feel hopeless, specifically about romance and love, I tend to look at all the ways I am still not who I think I should be. All sorts of negative thoughts go through my head about my past failures and my current struggles and my perpetual weaknesses. "You're never going to make someone a good partner anyways." "You've failed at so many relationships--what makes you think this time will be any different?" "You're not good enough." "If you were really captivating, someone would have pursued you by now, someone who would be good for you." And then it would turn into more action-oriented, cutting things. "Maybe you should just give up." "Why keep hoping? It only hurts you."
The verse I have thought of when I think of the hopefulness that, when unexamined and then disappointed, leads to this kind of hopelessness is this:
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12
I certainly know about the heartsickness, but I have taken this verse gravely out of context. I have used it to try and be angry that I haven't had what I long for, that it hasn't come to pass yet. I reason that a good God wouldn't want my heart to be sick, so why would he let my longing be unfulfilled? I wonder if I have been reading this verse all wrong.
*First of all, longing isn't painted as a bad thing, even though it can be vulnerable, sometimes painful, and even quite confusing at times.
*Second of all, it doesn't at all mention what kind of hope is being deferred. If the hope is for meaningful connection, acceptance, and love, then that is absolutely not out of reach, no matter what my relationship status happens to be.
*Thirdly, God has made us for longing, and He is the only one who can ultimately fulfill our hearts, so perhaps when hope is deferred it is not about our lives being really tough so much as what we choose to believe when our lives get tough and it feels like our deepest dreams or strongest hopes are genuinely never going to happen/come to pass.
If all three of these things are true, then that is very good news. And this verse isn't a license to rage and rail at God for withholding good things from us. Perhaps it is a reminder that he has given us Himself, the very best gift we could ever hope for, and He has also given us longing.
Longing is a gift. I know that is counterintuitive, but sometimes us melancholy people feel that truth deep down in the marrow of our bones. To deeply desire and to feel that ache is a beautiful human experience. But where I sometimes get it wrong is thinking that longing is the main gift, that in itself it is complete. But the thing about longing is that it always points to something. Maybe you long for adventure. Then adventure is the object of your affection and also your longing. Maybe you long for rest. Then rest is the object of your longing. The problem is that when we long for something deeply and for its own sake, we are so often catapulted right into the deep end of this spectrum, which is nothing less than obsession.
This is the opposite of hopelessness, but we are just as focused on ourselves. The other thing is that we are not trusting in God to do anything about it if we are in either of these extremes. We've either given up because we don't think there's anything we can do and we don't think He will make a move, or we have moved into the mindset where we will do anything possible to win that person over, get that job, or obtain perfection in a particular skill or habit. So when we are in that far extreme of obsession, there is this do-it-yourself attitude that shoves God out, puts us on center stage, essentially responsible for everything that happens without any input or wisdom from the God who created us. There is also a sense of entitlement that is dangerous. More often than not in this extreme, we leave behind the mindset that we're not good enough or that we don't have what it takes to move forward in our lives, and instead our egos have grown so much that not only do we think we're doing great, but we think we are entitled to get that thing or person or job that we have been wanting.
Longing is this place somewhere in between being hopeless and obsessed. When we are vulnerable and honest with God and ourselves first about what we desire and then safe, supportive people, there is something beautiful about that, and healing. We bring our feelings to God, and even if they are in the extremes of hopeless or obsessed, he can help us sort things out, bring us balance, and then redirect our longing to Himself, so that we don't drown in it. And being drawn to God in our longing can only help us. So longing is a gift—if we bring it to Him.
