-C.S. Lewis
I think C.S. Lewis was pure genius, and the above quotes is one of my favorites of his. It's been on my Facebook "favorite quote" page for years, now - so it officially makes it a favorite. :)
Last Saturday I had my first good cry in a long time. I use to love to cry when I was stressed, but somewhere along the line, I decided it just ate into the little time I had and since usually part of my problem was not having enough hours in the day to accomplish all of the other stressful events in my life, a "good cry" would only make me feel more stressed in the end, when I realized I was without even as much time as I had before I started the good cry. (Very analytical reasoning for no longer crying. haha)
But last Saturday the floodgates opened.
I have been feeling so overwhelmed and joyless lately. And so lonely. You know that "lonely in a crowd" kind of thing, because I am certainly surrounded with a montage of friends and supporters.
I thought how some people might find this incredulous. I have TONS of friends. I have so many friends that sometimes my friends tell me I have too many friends. People always say, "You make friends so easily!" My friend Lauren says, "everyone wants to be best friends with my best friend, Jessica." I've been in about 2 trillion weddings (not really... only like 12)... I was the maid of honor in 3 of those weddings... I always have a birthday party or some event to go to. When I go to visit Tennessee my family complains that I "keep the roads hot" as I drive all over the state meeting up with all of my friends. Really what it boils down to was that I made my relationships and my social life my main priority for many years. And I believe in loyalty and friendships to the death... and so I have developed over 29 years, many life-long friendships. And yet, despite it all, I have felt lately completely and totally alone. Isolated. Without a friend. Friendless. Totally unloved. Distant. Not because my friends are bad and have abandoned me... it's just where I have been mentally and emotionally.
I get together with a group of 4 other girls on Tuesday nights. It's a very intimate and personal time, where we discuss everything from an upcoming wedding to our deepest hearts thoughts. I love this group, and I feel that God has blessed me so much by placing me in it. Usually on these nights, we have a list of 4 or 5 questions that we go through to sort of encourage us to open up. They are something like the following: "What was something this past week that re-energized you? What was something this week that deflated you?" etc. This Tuesday our second question of the night was something to the effect of: What was something this week that made you experience a little bit of heaven? (i.e. left you thinking that we are made not just for this world.)
All of the girls had some really great answers... things that spoke joy into one's heart. Things like sunsets that light up the sky, as if it were a canvas of spattered, beautiful paint. Or the experience of the love of a small, child in all of it's innocence and joy. I knew immediately what my answer was. And it wasn't a feel good that had created it -- although I've certainly had those.
I shared how I had been feeling. How I had felt this extreme loneliness despite my complete surrounding of friends, and how that I believed that this was a known phrase ("lonely in a crowd") because it was a common concept... something that almost everyone had felt at one point or another. This feeling, I believe has a deeper root - a deeper significance. I believe it comes from the separation we have had from God, since the fall of man with Adam. I believe, that our desire to be intimately known, intimately loved and yet unfulfilled by the thousands of people and things we fill our lives with is because that the only person that can fulfill this desire completely is God. This feeling, although not a fun experience, had left my craving God. It had left me desiring heaven. It had left me wanting more of a relationship with Jesus. It had shown me that I was not meant for this world alone, and thus I could not find my worth, happiness, or fulfillment in this world.
It reiterated in my real life the meaning of the quote by C.S. Lewis that I love so much. I have in myself a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy... and it reminds me that there is more for me than just this world. What a wonderful, awesome, exciting, hopeful and refreshing thing to be reminded of.
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