Desperate

(Forgive me if this sounds preachy.)

I got to thinking about Desperate Housewives and realized they’re not that different from me. In fact I think the show is so popular because it zones in on one big truth: We are all desperate people and will go to great lengths to get what we want.

I would go even further to say that we are all looking for the same thing; we’re just going about it differently. That thing is love.

Sometimes we think we’ve found it, but eventually it shows its imperfections and we walk away disappointed. We go through a lot to get this one thing to fill the void in all our hearts. We seek it in bottles and in pills. We look for it in other people. We try to find it in hobbies – hiking, cooking. We try to attract it through wonderfully complicated rituals: of looking right, acting right, owning all the right gizmos and gadgets.

We think if we drive the right car, earn the correct degrees, balance the scales and speak three languages – love will come our way. Satisfaction will come in a marriage, a house, 2.5 children and possibly a family dog and picket fence. Happiness will be here when the bills are paid and that vacation can be had. All these things may come to pass, yet the longing continues.

Yet our heart groans for more—tugging us toward something else. Something we cannot name nor grasp so we try to fill our lives with more and more of what we think will make us happy. We are like hamsters running on an eternal exercise wheel. We get nowhere in our quest because we have looked everywhere for the perfect love except for up.

It is only in God that we find the love that will not disappoint. It is only God’s love that will quench our thirst. This is the only “thing” that will satisfy the longings of our hearts. We feel the constant nagging of hunger because we have tried to fill our lives with the things that the world tells us will make us complete. We walk away with hunger pangs. It is only by feasting at God’s table are we truly satisfied.

© Michelle Scott 2006