Julia spent the summer working in an orphanage in Busia, Uganda. On the
final day of her internship, she went to the children to tell each one goodbye.
One little girl named Sumaya was very sad and said to her, “Tomorrow you leave
us, and next week the other aunties [interns] leave.”
When Julia agreed that she was indeed leaving, Sumaya thought for a
minute and exclaimed, “But we will be all empty. None of you will be left!”
Again, Julia agreed. The little girl thought a few moments and replied: “But
God will be with us, so we won’t be all empty.”
If we are honest with ourselves, we know that “all empty” feeling. It is
an emptiness that friendship, love, sex, money, power, popularity, or success
can never assuage—a longing for something indefinable, something incalculably
precious but lost. Every good thing can remind, beckon, and awaken in us a
greater desire for that elusive “something more.” The closest we get is a hint,
an echo in a face, a painting, a scene . . . . And then it is gone. “Our best
havings are wantings,” said C. S. Lewis.
We were made for God, and in the end, nothing less will satisfy us. Without Him, we are all empty. He alone fills the hungry with good things (Ps. 107:9).
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. C. S. Lewis (RBC)
