That Person

I struggle in my prayer to give myself, as I truly am, to God.

I'm fairly certain .... well...as certain as one who tries to remain completely open to God's will can be (i.e. not certain at all) that God does not intend for me to approach Him alone for the rest of my life. In other words, I was made for union with man. (The reasons why I have the amount of timid, uncommitted belief I do is a story for some other time.)

So, being made for such union, I frequently find myself asking God how much time I must spend longing for it. I try to gently remind Him ;-) of that for which I was made.

However, God, in His infinite wisdom and perfect love, has me single now.  He is calling me to a life of something else for the time being. I find it hard to embrace big dreams in Him while waiting.

Around the time of graduation, I was preparing to say many, many goodbyes. I was comforted by great peace in a vision of a life in which faithful servants of God continuously come into my path and leave.  They leave because God calls them.  They leave because of their openness to His will in their lives.  They leave because the Father beckons.

As the Kingdom of God is built up around the world through the "yes" of all these people I envisioned walking in and out of each others' lives, there would be joy.  I saw myself going wherever He called as well.

Right now though, I wait.

I love that vision. But I struggle to give myself fully to it.

It is a joyful life, yes, but the good Christian knows that the joy comes only as the fruit of suffering.

I've found myself waiting, unaccountably it seems, for that one person who would always be at my side - the one person who would walk in and not out, whose call was the same as mine.

As I confessed this in prayer to our loving and gently compassionate God, He whispered His response to the silence and stillness of my heart:

That person you are waiting for...it's me. I am the One who will never leave as others journey away.  That person is me.