Empty (a five minute post)

Today I wanted to link up with the amazing, sensational Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday. I'm slipping in late to the game, but I hope you come play along too, and let your words fly free.

This week the word is: Empty.

I wrote not long ago about being brave enough to be empty, and I wish I could keep filling a bucket with those words, pouring them over myself when the weeks run long or the time runs short, when I forget that it takes courage to admit emptiness.

But when we are empty, dear ones, we are also open - emptied of what has filled our schedules or our days, emptied of our expectations, emptied of our long agonizing plans or anticipations or anxieties. We are emptied sometimes so that we can be filled up with more, filled because our hearts have been stretched wider by emptiness.

I know that the emptiness can linger, and when you walk through the abandoned hallways your shoes make long echoes against the linoleum. I know that there is waiting in emptiness, a soft shadow of uncertainty that keeps us guessing. I know that there is impatience there, in my heart, and a longing for bright lights and clarity and fullness.

But I have this dream that out of our emptiness there is a bigger wholeness. Out of being emptied this week I'm overflowing with something new. Out of giving all that I have, I crawl back to the well and He offers to fill me again.

I wish I could wrap this up in a box for you and send it your way - that if you feel emptied by the week, if you feel anxious, if you feel weary, if you look in your heart and find nothing left? I want to promise that you are being prepared for something beautiful. 

I promise our emptiness will make us brave. 

Love,
Hilary