I have an impressive addiction to Dove's Chocolate Brownie Affair ice cream. I also have a horrible habit of eating my, well what I affectionately call my second dinner, at 11pm at night. This said meal is usually not as healthy or substantial as the first dinner. Hungry is not a word I would associate with myself. Awkward perhaps. Or quirky. Tall. But not hungry. Until tonight. Until this song. Until this line. "When you are hungry and are tempted to steal..." (Tenth Avenue North..."Times"). This song hit me in the gut worse than eating the entire tub of ice cream in one sitting. It narrates God's love in first person...scenario after scenario of really hardcore situations that breaks your heart, and humbles you on the spot...and this is the line that grabs me...why?
I have never been for want of food. I have never known what it is like to go to bed hungry. I know others have, and my heart breaks for them. But I do know what it is like to be starving spiritually. To feel like you are drained. To feel as if your heart is famined. To crave love, encouragement, hope, attentiveness, protection so keenly, that it borders on desperate. And you grasp white knuckled, and wild eyed to anything that looks as if it might satisfy, rather than to risk going to bed hungry again. And I get tempted to steal. I fish for compliments. I put on extra eyeliner. I justify my defensiveness because I don't believe that God will step up and defend me. At the end of the day, whose am I? If I don't know that, how can I expect to be filled? It's not only in God's job description to love me, to fill me, to pat me on the back and validate my heart...it's His joy. To placate my heart in any other way, is not just injuring my heart further, but it's stealing the joy God gets from rescuing me. Beauty. Not just in a moment. Not just in a dress. Not just when my hair is fixed, or when my skin decided to behave itself. That's what my heart craves. Beauty in a lifestyle that is breathtaking. Moment upon moment that is picturesque. My daughter's laughter, my husband's smile, our candid and vulnerable life lived so that God looks even more beautiful. To look back at my life as if in a series of beautiful black and white portraits...and every one of those speaks of peace, love and intimacy. White picket fence syndrome much? Perhaps. Naive? Yeah, I'm about ninety nine percent sure that my air castles might be a tad lofty. But, I am a women. I am a dreamer. And that is a powerful combination in the hands of a holy God.