Longings—Part 4

Wordless Sighs, Aching Groans

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

What a promise we have in Psalm 37! But what if those desires linger, unfulfilled for decades, as Abraham experienced? “Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” the proverb reminds us (Proverb 13:12). 

The longing Babette’s Feast stirred in me lingered for years—a creative call begging to be released. Other longings came and went, while this core longing gnawed at me. Teetering between hope and despair, I struggled to find time, direction, and resources for creative practice.

This is a profound and precarious place, between hope and despair. Michael Card would call it worship—a heart in despair crying out for hope.[1] It’s a restless place, without peace, where we grow weary in the waiting. But it’s a place to remember. “The moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans” (Romans 8:26 MSG).

I let the Holy Spirit pray for me while I sighed and groaned. He whispered, “Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy” Romans 8:24-25).

I confess I didn’t see anything enlarging me or feel joyful expectation. I had no clarity or focus. Circumstances derailed me. Time and resources eluded me. In my fourth decade, on track to pass my prime (or so I thought), Death of a Dream haunted me. Would I age out of my waiting period?

But hope sparked within me and a new prayer formed: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” I reminded the Lord. “I don’t think that’s your intention for me.”

I waited longer until He answered, “We boast in the hope of the glory of God. We also glory in our sufferings” (Romans 5:2-5).

Do we also glory in our longings—a type of suffering?

To long for something is to ache for it. I trusted the Spirit to not let me be put to shame but to forge perseverance and shape my character. He would cultivate hope. I clung to those truths.

[1] Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow (Colorado Springs: Nav Press, 2005), 21