Empty

"We accept our emptying because we realize that our very emptiness is fulfillment and plenitude. In our emptiness the One Word is clearly spoken. It says, "I will never let go of you or desert you" (Hebrews 13:5), for I am your God, I am Love." -Thomas Merton, "Love and Living"

The idea of emptying has been on my mind and heart these past few days. It seems as if I'm being stripped of everything. I mean, my ministry seems to have been snatched from me, I'm going to be separated from my best friend in the fall, heck, even the classes I'm supposed to be in seem to have been falling through. Why is this all happening to me? I think it's just that God is emptying me. In and through the emptiness, that is when God's Word can be spoken through me. When He empties us, and takes away all of those things that we hold onto so tightly, that's when His message of Love can truly be spread, without our own influences. What sounds better? "I love you through my own depraved nature" or "I love you through God, because, He's all I really have?"

St. Paul talks about being emptied in his letter to the Philippians when he said, "But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you." (Philippians 2:17) Being poured out is a good thing here. Being made empty is what is necessary because, I can do nothing on my own, however, "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." (Philippians 4:13). It's this paradox, in our weakness there is strength, in our foolishness there is wisdom, and even in our emptiness, there is fulfillment.

"Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something so that no human being might boast before God." (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)

This emptying is so that there might be no pride in me. Pride is the antithesis of love. How can I love if I'm too busy making an altar for myself? How can I see the goodness of God in others if I only see the falsified goodness within myself? Being made empty for the sake of love, that's what's going on, that's what He's doing in me right now. The pride needed to be taken away, for what end and purpose I still do not know yet. Father, I don't understand You, but I trust you.