Oh...

I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me. (Foreigner)

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

For the last few months I've been asking God to cause me to delight in Him.

You see, I forgot what it's like. I forgot what it felt like to deeply delight in something or someone. I've had brief moments, lightning quick, of delight but nothing that felt truly life-giving or sustainable.

I think I know the desires of my heart, but there's been doubt there, too.

And I've been so tired.

My inner land has felt so desolate.

I have seen myself as barren.

Hollow...

Empty...

Forgotten...

But I didn't really know those things were the underpinnings of my heart's life. A couple of conversations helped me do more than intellectually acknowledge the condition of my heart.

Ideationally, I got it. I have theoretically understood love and, by extension, delight. Otherwise, I genuinely saw and knew, deeply knew, that I had forgotten delight. I couldn't recognize the experience of love, and of being loved.

Instead of trying to make myself remember, which would be my wont, I took it to God.

"Please, God, cause me to delight in You. I can't, unless You do this. I don't have it in me. I don't know how. I can't even fake it. So, God, please cause me to delight in You."

I haven't noticed a difference but others have.

"Your countenance is lighter."

"Makeup covers a multitude of ills..."

"Makeup can't make you smile more."

"Oh..."

But I have still felt barren. And desolate. And forgotten.

And I've been crying. A lot...

So I started asking God to make Isaiah 62:4 true for me. I need it actualized. More than intellectually seen and known to be true and more than some sort of transitory feeling, I want and need it made experientially real.

Because, you see, I am keenly aware that being deeply loved is something with which I have little experiential reality. I haven't known what it's really like.

This past weekend was Easter. I drove to Austin to spend the weekend with the people who, somehow, have become my True Family.

I noticed something over the weekend...

I felt warmth.

Noticed...

Wanted...

Welcomed...

Received...

Embraced...

Not for anything I could do, but for just being.

For just being...me...

Never again will you be called The Forsaken or The Desolate. Your new name will be God's Delight and The Bride of God, for the LORD delights in you and will claim you as His Bride. (Isaiah 62:4)

I felt loved.

Underneath that, delight...

Delight in God and His creation...

Oh.

So this is what it's like.