The Longing

It was so nice to catch up.
She moved away almost a year ago.
She is in a new place, which is totally unfamiliar and strange to her.
She is with her husband and children but this move was hard.

I have lived in three different houses in my married life but they were local moves.
Everything surrounding my moves was familiar.
Everything surrounding her move was unfamiliar.
I told her I admired her and I meant it.

I do not have that adventurous spirit.
I have never been called upon to uproot our family.
I have never been asked to start over.
I have never had to begin again and make all new friends.

I could feel her pain.
Her children are settled into school.
Her husband seems to like his new job.
Now it is time for her; time to readjust, time to launch.

Everybody tells you about moving into a new place.
No one ever tells you about moving on.
What she said was more profound than she knew.
She desires to move on with grace, contentment, and joy.

Another woman is experiencing quiet in her home.
She has children in college.
When they moved into the dorm, they took all the bustling activity with them.
They took the sounds with them, the sounds a house makes when a family is inside.

It is the sounds a house makes that bring a woman comfort.
It is the silence of that same house, when her family is gone, that is deafening.
The silence speaks much too loudly.
All the times she reminded them to use their inside voices seem to taunt her.

Inside voices.
Outside voices.
Just to hear the melody it makes as it wafts through the air.
Oh the priceless treasure; the symphony that is the sound of a family.

I know that silence.
I know that feeling of, now what?
What defined you for so many years is now altogether different.
A woman has to reach down deep within her and see who she is at this moment.

Discovery can be exciting.
Discovery can also be very frightening.
Who am I down deep?
Where is my place?

I was making dinner and I was listening to a Bing Crosby Pandora radio station.
I was hearing all the old songs I remember my mother and my aunt singing.
Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Rosemary Clooney.
It was background music as I made the salad and I found myself singing along.

Then a song came on that brought me back.
I could still hear my mother and my aunt singing in our kitchen.

She may be weary, women do get weary
Wearing the same shabby dress
And when she’s weary
Try a little tenderness.

Oh, she may be waiting just anticipating
Things she may never possess
And while she’s without them
Try a little tenderness.

It’s not just sentimental
She has her grief and her care.
But a word so soft and gentle
Makes it easier to bear.

You won’t regret it, women don’t forget it
Love is their whole happiness
And it’s all so easy
Try a little tenderness.

(Try a Little Tenderness, written by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Harry M. Woods)

I stood there and the tears fell quietly down my face.
Partly from the memories, as I heard the voices of two women who are no longer here.
Partly for some unknown reason, some deep within me reason from a secret place inside.
I was homesick.

There it was.
Just like the woman in her unfamiliar place.
Just like the woman who finds no solace in the silence.
We are homesick, plain and simple.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:1-4)

The rivers of Babylon were really a series of canals.
During the exile, the Israelites grieved there.
They hung their harps on unfamiliar trees.
Gone were the cedar and olive trees they were used to in the Promised Land.

Their captors were mocking the Israelites by asking them to sing songs of Zion.
The Israelites could not worship there because the land of Babylon was unclean.
Israel had no temple.
Their joy was gone.

Then I saw a Lamb looking as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on earth. (Revelation 5:6-10)

The people got their harps back.
The blood of the Lamb, who is Jesus, purchased them for God.
They were bought back.
They were redeemed.

That redemption is their source of their joy.
That redemption is the source of their song.
That redemption is their definition.
They are a bought back people, the redeemed of the Lord.

Unfamiliar places, silence, and weariness will come upon each of us.
We hang up our harps and refuse to sing songs of joy.
But then the One who practices tenderness reaches out His nail scarred Hand.
You are mine and you are deeply loved.

And nothing else seems to matter.

2 responses to “The Longing”

1. So true and so encouraging ! Amen!

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   • Thank you, friend!
     There is nothing better than HIS love and tenderness.
     Gina

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