Empty

I am sure a feeling of emptiness is one with which many people are familiar. I know without doubt that deployment is not the only cause. I am sure that the causes range from children going to school for the first time to infertility to death and many other cases in between.

For me, emptiness is when I wake up in the morning, and Ryan's half of the bed is still made. It's on Sunday mornings when I put my make-up on, and Ryan's not in the shower. It's evenings when I am sitting on the couch looking at an empty chair or sitting on the chair looking at an empty couch. It's sitting down at the table (which I rarely do anymore for this reason) and his chair at the head of the table sitting empty. It's taking a walk and holding both leashes.

It's not just Ryan's absence that leaves my house and heart empty; it's the absence of a child Ryan and I would have had if he hadn't deployed. Emptiness is looking at the living floor and imagining a baby laying on a blanket. It's looking at the kitchen and imagining a baby sitting in a high chair. It's being upstairs and imagining a baby sleeping in a crib. It's putting my stuff in the back seat of the car and imagining putting a baby in a car-seat.

Although I won't be angry with myself for feeling empty, I don't think it is a feeling Christians ever need to feel. One of the things God has whispered in my ear often in the past year is, "You are whole and complete because of Me." Neither Ryan nor a baby can ever make me whole or complete. God called us to have no other gods before him, but so often, we have a tendency in our relationships to expect too much of the other person. We expect the other person to fill us and complete us. The fact is ONLY Jesus can do that. It will ruin a relationship when we put too much pressure on another person--in most cases our spouse--to be our god. Jesus wants us to desire Him first and he can fill all our needs.

2 Peter 1:3 says By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.

Whole and Complete In Him,

Jordon