Longing

 

 One of my grandmas was raised on a ranch in Wyoming. She was taught to work hard and live smart, and she absolutely has. As a child she saved her pennies and bought herself a huge, beautiful piano from a preacher's wife. It's a full sized upright, with magnificent carvings, a beautiful stain, and the richest sound I've heard. This piano traveled the states to rest in my childhood home. I spent many, many hours pouring my heart into the keys as a child and into my twenties. I loved to take the front panels off, and let the vibrations of the strings surround me as I played. It felt like swimming in music. I wrote my first melodies sitting on that little swivel stool.

When my beloved and I got married, we moved into a tiny, adorable little house. It was freshly remodeled and sitting behind a white picket fence on a corner lot, and we were very happy! We soon filled the house with a baby and another on the way, and decided to relocate for more room.

The piano stayed in my parents' home not far away, and I missed it a little, but was full to the brim with my husband and my babies.

After another baby or two and a few more years of life, the dull ache for music began to roar in my heart. The season of our life changed, and doors opened, and music and worship began to pour out again.

I've talked to the Lord about that piano many, many times. I've cried to Him and begged Him for it back, I've laid it down and taken it back up and laid it down again. I've shut it out and let it in, and if I'm honest I still long for it.

The Lord has given me many things, and my life and home are full of blessing. My husband provides well and loves well, and my kids are amazing.

Still something about that piano nags at my heart sometimes. I don't like the Lord's answer, but I want the fruit of His ways, so here is what He has said:

He is not withholding good from me.
This gap creates longing, and in that longing He moves, inhabits. He wants to be IN that ache, so He can fill it. When the ache to drench myself in music cannot be instantly satisfied, I MUST learn to let HIM fill me. There cannot be a blurring of the ordinary and the fulfillment the Lord brings. My songs cannot just be music, they must be WORSHIP. My worship cannot be only outward when the ache runs deep in my soul. When the gap runs deep, so does the worship. As the depth of ME cracks open, He can pour out and pour in, filling and rushing and being magnificent and magnified.

So for now the ache remains. The longing leads me to Him, and someday He and I will meet at those keys again. He is good, and I will be faithful until then. I will let the gap refine my music into worship, let the longing for Him overtake any other longing.

"A sluggard's appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied."
Proverbs 13:4

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."
Proverbs 13:12