Empty Chairs, Full Heart
The world is bustling with harvest as the ground yields its abundance, and I see the gleaning. My thoughts turn all things agricultural as I notice the uprooting and somehow, it is a picture of how my heart has felt for much of this year. Uprooted. Plowed under. Dislocated. And I have tried my best to claim the reordering as grace.
As farmers gather in what they spring-planted, I'm left with the image of seeds being dropped in into the ground in hope. Of the dying being transformed into future-fruit of abundance and I ask myself if all that's died in me is merely seed for some future miracle I've yet to discover.
Could all this loss birth a new fruit in my soul that God knows can only happen this way?
Tis the season of thanks-giving and I'm finding that two emotions collide within me, leaving me to try to somehow reconcile them both. One the one hand, I feel more thankful than ever before - for togetherness, for health, for love, for Christ Himself. Thankful for what I still have. Because I've lost.
On the other, I feel like a part of me still struggles to receive what God has given and call it grace. Still fights to accept that there is goodness to still be had in the midst of all this broken, this grief. Finds it hard to thank God for what He's done when all it feels like is that He's denied. Because I've lost.
How can I find my soul-eyes? How can I go wash myself in the pools of His love so that the scales of blindness fall off and I am healed? How can I take all of this emptiness and turn it into praise? I need to find the hard-thanks somehow.
This week, I am gathering with my extended family as always this time of year. Thanksgiving is when we come together. And I help my cousin set the table where soon, all will arrive and fill it. There will be feasting and football, the 5K run, conversation, and all things family. But my mind drifts to the fact that there are several I know for whom there will be an empty chair at the table this year. I finger silverware and names rhythmically scroll through my mind - widows and widowers who have lost their spouse, children who are now without parents, parents who are now without children. Death has stopped at several homes in 2019 - miscarriage. heart attack. car accident. cancer. - and I realize that I'm not the only one struggling to practice hard-thanks right now. There are many for whom this holiday season feels a bit emptier. Because they've lost, too.
As homes all across America are bursting with laughter, love, and celebration, some families are trying to salvage Thanksgiving. Families for whom the holidays carry a greater weight than most. Families like that of my dear friend, Alex. Thanksgiving was the last holiday they all shared together four years ago before his sudden death a mere days later. For people like them, this day has mixed emotions. Life goes on, but they remember with a heavy heart. The empty chair stays that way...year after year.
I stare into empty hands and wonder how I, too, can salvage Thanksgiving. How to accept and thank God for what has happened, even if it's appeared to be less than good. And I think back to all the hard days this year where thanks has been the last thing on my lips instead of the first. When all I could do was to cry out in lament and beseech God for some answer as to why all this suffering. Why such a difficult year?
But then I'm reminded of all the times Grace seasoned the sorrow with hope. Of all the moments when a timely conversation, view of creation, or song of redemption gave my spirit belief that God still loves. That I do not serve a Savior who isn't aquatinted intimately with how I feel and how my soul breaks. That He will never withhold any good thing from His beloved, and somehow I need to remember. To preach to myself His faithful goodness when heart-wounds ache and the eyes leak sore.
And maybe this praise birthed forth in pain was what Martin Luther hinted at when he said that he had held many things in his hands and lost them all but what he'd placed in God's hands, those he still possessed?
Family will soon arrive and I feel time limited with those I will see. Not everyone will gather here forever. We already have our own share of empty chairs as some have passed on. And more will join them before too long. I want to slow and savor what I still have. And I want more God inside of me so that the more I lose, the more I feel the comfort of what Gospel-hope I still possess. I want to accept what I have now and not allow the not-given in my life, the taken-from my life, to spoil it.
As I place the plates around the table, straighten napkins, set down glasses, I think of another table - the only table that is actually fuller this year. The Heavenly table being prepared for all those who are safe in the forever-love of God. And I see Jesus Himself making ready a spot for me someday. This year, dear ones now celebrate an eternal Thanks-giving where there is no sorrow or pain, and I long to join them. On this earth, hard-thanks must be said for all the sufferings endured. But in this moment, the darkness lifts. And though the chairs are still empty and losses linger still, somehow, my heart is full.
As farmers gather in what they spring-planted, I'm left with the image of seeds being dropped in into the ground in hope. Of the dying being transformed into future-fruit of abundance and I ask myself if all that's died in me is merely seed for some future miracle I've yet to discover.
Could all this loss birth a new fruit in my soul that God knows can only happen this way?
Tis the season of thanks-giving and I'm finding that two emotions collide within me, leaving me to try to somehow reconcile them both. One the one hand, I feel more thankful than ever before - for togetherness, for health, for love, for Christ Himself. Thankful for what I still have. Because I've lost.
On the other, I feel like a part of me still struggles to receive what God has given and call it grace. Still fights to accept that there is goodness to still be had in the midst of all this broken, this grief. Finds it hard to thank God for what He's done when all it feels like is that He's denied. Because I've lost.
How can I find my soul-eyes? How can I go wash myself in the pools of His love so that the scales of blindness fall off and I am healed? How can I take all of this emptiness and turn it into praise? I need to find the hard-thanks somehow.
This week, I am gathering with my extended family as always this time of year. Thanksgiving is when we come together. And I help my cousin set the table where soon, all will arrive and fill it. There will be feasting and football, the 5K run, conversation, and all things family. But my mind drifts to the fact that there are several I know for whom there will be an empty chair at the table this year. I finger silverware and names rhythmically scroll through my mind - widows and widowers who have lost their spouse, children who are now without parents, parents who are now without children. Death has stopped at several homes in 2019 - miscarriage. heart attack. car accident. cancer. - and I realize that I'm not the only one struggling to practice hard-thanks right now. There are many for whom this holiday season feels a bit emptier. Because they've lost, too.
As homes all across America are bursting with laughter, love, and celebration, some families are trying to salvage Thanksgiving. Families for whom the holidays carry a greater weight than most. Families like that of my dear friend, Alex. Thanksgiving was the last holiday they all shared together four years ago before his sudden death a mere days later. For people like them, this day has mixed emotions. Life goes on, but they remember with a heavy heart. The empty chair stays that way...year after year.
But then I'm reminded of all the times Grace seasoned the sorrow with hope. Of all the moments when a timely conversation, view of creation, or song of redemption gave my spirit belief that God still loves. That I do not serve a Savior who isn't aquatinted intimately with how I feel and how my soul breaks. That He will never withhold any good thing from His beloved, and somehow I need to remember. To preach to myself His faithful goodness when heart-wounds ache and the eyes leak sore.
And maybe this praise birthed forth in pain was what Martin Luther hinted at when he said that he had held many things in his hands and lost them all but what he'd placed in God's hands, those he still possessed?
Family will soon arrive and I feel time limited with those I will see. Not everyone will gather here forever. We already have our own share of empty chairs as some have passed on. And more will join them before too long. I want to slow and savor what I still have. And I want more God inside of me so that the more I lose, the more I feel the comfort of what Gospel-hope I still possess. I want to accept what I have now and not allow the not-given in my life, the taken-from my life, to spoil it.
As I place the plates around the table, straighten napkins, set down glasses, I think of another table - the only table that is actually fuller this year. The Heavenly table being prepared for all those who are safe in the forever-love of God. And I see Jesus Himself making ready a spot for me someday. This year, dear ones now celebrate an eternal Thanks-giving where there is no sorrow or pain, and I long to join them. On this earth, hard-thanks must be said for all the sufferings endured. But in this moment, the darkness lifts. And though the chairs are still empty and losses linger still, somehow, my heart is full.
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