And Yet I Want to be There.

Saturday mornings are slow mornings. And I like them that way. This morning, I slept, turned down several babysitting jobs for this afternoon, and laid in bed long after I had woken up. My apartment building has shut off the water for the day, and thankfully I remembered to reserve some last night. This morning, I used over half the water I saved to make one strong French press, and I’m currently in the process of drinking the entire thing.

Today, I’m going to stay in my pajamas until the very last moment necessary, even if that means 4 o’clock. I’m going to sit here in this chair and think and read and be for just a while longer. I’m going to sport my new red frames and feel sophisticated and wild at the same time. I’m going to do my Bible study in Greek; a pastime long forgotten in my life. This morning, I’m going to write because I haven’t in a while and it makes me feel alive.

In the process of this morning, as I drank my coffee by the dregs and ate homemade cranberry-vanilla bread (delicious, if I do say so myself), I was quiet. I haven’t been quiet in a while. At first, it was a bit unnerving. I was sitting completely unkempt (women in movies who wake up looking like models make me angry sometimes) in a chair facing the window. Now, this window looks out over a beautiful section of the Chicago skyline and the scene makes me rather pensive. I was thinking and praying and drinking coffee and thinking some more. And I began to cry.

I want to be with Him.

Every fiber of my being is crying out for heaven. I walk with Him here, I abide in Him, I live in union with Him. And yet I want to be there. With Him. In Him. I ache for the day when I will know Him as He knows me and for when I will be like Him because I have seen Him for who He is. I want face-to-face to be actualized and I want that which is my spiritual reality to become my only reality.

There’s this book I have sitting on my shelf. The cover is brown velvet and has a gold silk ribbon running across the covers and binding. The pages are gold trimmed and most of them are still blank. It’s a journal I began was I was sixteen. In it, I have written letters to my future husband; letters of hope and expectation as well as records of loss and ache. This morning amidst the tears I realized something. That book is more about Him than any other. Those longings and tears and excitements and anticipations are His property before they belong to any other. Each word is most appropriately stated to Him, my Jesus.

It’s like an engagement, this season of life. Death is only to be desired because it would bring about the final union between God and us. But it’s not appropriate yet because He has not called. It’s not yet time. So this ache is right. It’s the only thing that would be appropriate for this season. Longing. Desire. Craving.

And that changes everything, don’t you think?

Especially this slow Saturday morning.