Longings After God

Today has been a day of big ups and big downs. Big up: I got my foster care license! I am officially approved to be a parent! Big down: the brothers I have been praying to adopt are already in an adoptive home. I know, that’s a huge up for them. Rationally, I am really happy that they have a potential forever home; it is what I have been praying for them for months now. But, I grieve. Those boys have been in my thoughts all day every day for a long time. I am so thrilled that they will have a forever family, but I am sad that they won’t be in mine.

If I didn’t believe in an all-powerful, all-prescient God, I’d be a wreck right now. I’d be running through a litany of “if only” thoughts, and I’d probably be mad and frustrated. Instead, I am sad but trusting, disappointed but hopeful. God knows the children who will become my sons and daughters in the decades ahead. He knows the number of hairs on their heads. He loves them already, and He loves me.

My Dear Lord,
I can but tell thee that thou knowest
I long for nothing but thyself,
Nothing but holiness,
Nothing but union with thy will.
Thou hast given me these desires,
And thou alone canst give me the thing desired.
My soul longs for communion with thee,
For mortification of indwelling corruption,
Especially spiritual pride.
How precious it is
To have a tender sense and clear apprehension
Of the mystery of godliness,
Of true holiness!
What a blessedness to be like thee
As much as it is possible for a creature to be like its Creator!
Lord, give me more of thy likeness;
Enlarge my soul to contain fullness of holiness;
Engage me to live more for thee.
Help me to be less pleased with my spiritual experiences,
And when I feel at ease after sweet communings,
Teach me it is far too little I know and do.
Blessed Lord,
Let me climb up near to thee,
And love, and long, and plead, and wrestle with thee,
And pant for deliverance from the body of sin,
For my heart is wandering and lifeless,
And my soul mourns to think it should ever lose sight of its Beloved.
Wrap my life in divine love,
And keep me ever desiring thee,
Always humble and resigned to thy will,
More fixed on thyself,
That I may be more fitted for doing and suffering.

--The Valley of Vision