Feeling Empty

   I came to myself with a start, and realized that I had been sitting quite still, my eyes fixed out the window, but not seeing anything. I couldn't remember thinking anything. There was no awareness of how long I had sat there, and I did not seem to have any emotions at all.

   It was that empty feeling again. This was an affliction I never experienced in my life, until my children were grown. I had known loneliness, disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, and many other negatives. I've known all ranges of joy as well. But this void in between was new to me. A nothing place is such a waste, yet many people in the Bible describe the same feeling.

    * He sitteth alone and keepeth silence. Lamentations 3:28a

   Wanting to escape the vacuum, I got up and made some ginger tea, but it didn't help. Nothing appealed to me; not a book, not a movie, and not to write. There was no one to talk to, and besides, who would want to talk to someone whose mind appeared to be vacant!

   When I finally indentified this feeling as apathy, I sought to find what made it arrive, and clutch me in its grip. It appeared to be caused by a general lack of being needed. For decades I had been mothering. All of my adulthood I had been surrounded by children who needed me. Which way should I turn now that my life was so much emptier? That was the question which haunted me.

    * ... remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me ... Lamentations 3:19,20

   Hopelessness has done two things to me, over the past few years. It has taken me down into a tomb of emptiness where I no longer cared much about anything. It has also let me hit bottom, where I experienced deep depression, yet did not die. God was there, and helped me to raise my desperate eyes to Him in a weak plea for help.

   It is not good to wait to hit bottom. A weak plea in my emptiness is all God is waiting for. He holds out His mighty hand for me to grasp. He helps me remember and deeply sense His love for me. He puts hymns back into my mind, which have blessed me in the past. He tucks Bible verses back into my mind, which give me renewed hope. He brings a letter from a friend, with words of encouragement, or a phone call from a grown child, with words of love and care.

    * It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22,23

   If I need to be needed, then my next project should be a quest for a place to give, to serve; a way to fill a need for someone.

   An emotional vacuum is a tool of the enemy. It is the slippery slope he wants to cause me to slide down, toward the path to depression. A path I want to avoid if at all possible. My goal must be to recognize and shun it as quickly as I can. If I cannot distract myself from it, I must lift my eyes to my Heavenly Father. He is able and ready to raise me up and save me from this place.

    * I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1,2