"Do you love me?"

"I am a whore, I do confess...
'Cause I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers so less wild."

-Derek Webb, Wedding Dress


So, it's settled. The world is not as it should be.

It seems there is a truth and beauty to accepting the fact that life is going to be painful. If I don't, then I go desperately looking for ways to escape, a means of rescue, in people and things that aren't escape hatches, that were never equipped to get me out of here.

So, I'm in this musical. And when I'm at rehearsal, I'm blissfully happy. But this week was Thanksgiving and so we have had a break from rehearsals since Wednesday. And this rehearsal fast is reminding me that this show will not last forever, that there will be a goodbye. I'm kind of depressed about it, actually, but I am trying to learn from this reminder that anything that ends is not ultimately what I am looking for.

There is something in my heart, and I think in your heart, too, that wants more, that wants better. Better than all of this. You know, I am attempting to write this blog in a way that anyone, no matter what they believe, will be able to relate, but I can't avoid what this post is leading me to.

I have found nothing else that satisfies that longing inside you and me but Jesus. Everything else seems to act like an unfulfilled promise, like a friend who acts all excited to know you and then withdraws. It's like there is a gaping hole inside of me, and I've tried to fill it with fun, with movies, with deep talks with friends, with chocolate, with the joy of doing what I'm good at, with other people thinking I'm pretty or skinny or funny...and it's not that chocolate is bad or I shouldn't have fun. I'm not saying that good things are bad; it's just, I don't like it when I start to think I need them or I'll die, or something.

I want to become like Jesus. And the Bible says that he came not to be served, but to serve. I have spent so much of my life living a question: "Do you love me?" And what I really want, in everything I do, is to live a statement: "I love you." I don't want to use people to get filled up with love and acceptance and purpose; I want instead to serve other people, no matter who they are or how capable they are of being loving themselves.

And it seems that the only time I am able to escape living a question instead of a statement is when I take my question to Jesus (pray). It goes something like this:

Me: "Jesus, I'm really lonely and I'm hurting. Do you love me?"

Jesus: "Yes, my dear, precious Elizabeth. I love you, and I am captivated by you. You are the reason I came down to your earth that is no longer the way it was meant to be, and I lived for 33 years. You are the the reason I died--because I want to be with you. I am the one you are dreaming of. Trust me. Learn to know me. Learn that I will walk with you through every bit of pain you encounter--as a brother in the trenches. Find your deep satisfaction in me."

It's not like I can hear his voice with my ears, or like I get an answer right away all the time. In fact, I think I often avoid asking Jesus my question because, well, I can't see him and I don't really always know how to hear him. But as I keep reading the Bible, it's like I have ears in my heart that he whispers truths to. And then, as I walk through my day, and keep talking to him, it's like he keeps whispering, showing me hidden truths in the things going on around me, showing me the ways that what He says in the Bible makes sense of life.

And only when Jesus answers my desperate question, "Do you love me?", am I capable of living a statement, "I love you," with the people around me.



Ask him your question. And then patiently wait and see what He says. Don't stop listening for him. He cares.