So much more...

    Recently, I asked a neighbor in Florida how things were going for him. He answered that everything was good, or 'as good,' he guessed, 'as it probably ever gets'. I can't remember his exact wording, but behind his answer I sensed a wistfulness, a heart hunger that there must be something more. I wish now I had let him know I'd be happy to talk with him about what more there is....so much more. Or, rather, Who there is Who is the source of much more.
   Years ago, Catherine Marshall, wife of the famous Scottish minister, Peter Marshall, wrote a book with just that title:  Something More.  In the years since I first read that book, I have discovered that there's even more than she described.  [Another day, another post.]
   I remember having my neighbor's exact thought decades ago when I was about twenty. Everything was going well from the world's perspective:  I was excelling in college, I had scholarships and a good work study position, I had a boyfriend whom I thought I would one day marry (silly me).  Yet I remember standing outside in the parking lot, staring up at the trees and sky around me and saying to myself, There must be something more. Why do I feel as if there's an unfulfilled longing in my heart that can't seem to be satisfied?  What else is there?  I didn't even know what else to wish for.  And wish is what it would have been, because I didn't yet know the Giver of every good and perfect gift...or at least I had forgotten all about Him.
   As a young child I carried this hunger within me.  I used to visit the small chapel (always open) beneath the large church we attended.  There in the quiet I sensed His Presence. I can't say I heard His 'still, small voice,' per se.  But I knew it was God Who was there with me, and I longed for Him. I just didn't know Him personally, didn't know Him as my Heavenly Father. I loved the Shepherd in the stained glass windows in the church above me, the one who held the children in His lap.  But I didn't really know Him.  I had no idea who the Holy Spirit was, the one they called the Holy Ghost in those days, but never really explained or talked about.  I loved the Psalms, the beautiful poetry of them, and without even trying, learned many by heart.  They filled me with joy. O come, let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is the Lord our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand....O that today you would hearken to His voice...
   If only I had been close to Him during my teen and college years, the way my children were.  I might not have wandered so far away. I remember even then looking up to the sky, looking for more, for deeper things. But though I didn't know Him, He knew me.  He whispered to me in that parking lot years later:  Something more....Yes.  Something more.   And after much heartbreak (which He knew was coming and which he used for good in my life to draw me to Him): Come home.  Come home to Me. My arms are wide open. I am more than you even know to ask for or imagine.
   I wanted to tell my neighbor, "Something more.  Oh yes. So much more." But I just stood there and let the kairos moment pass me by. After he left, words began to form in my mind. And then I thought, "Rats, I missed it.  The perfect opening!"  I pray I get another opportunity and that the Lord fills my mouth with just the right words to tell him there is so very much more.
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15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

 --1 Peter 3:15