full and empty

 

 

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfed in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.

Standing before that tree, laden with fruit withheld, we listen to Evil's murmur, "In the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened..." [Gen. 3:5]. But in the beginning, our eyes were already open. Our sight was perfect. Our vision let us see a world spilling with goodness. Our eyes fill on nothing but the glory of God. We saw God as He truly is: good. But we were lured by the deception that there was more to a full life, there was more to see. And, true, there was more to see: the ugliness we hadn't beheld, the sinfulness we hadn't witnessed, the loss we hadn't know.

We eat and, in an instant, we are blind. No longer do we see God as one we can trust. No longer do we perceive Him as wholly good. No longer do we observe all of the remaining paradise.

We eat. And in an instant, we see. Everywhere we look, we see a world of lack, a universe of loss, a cosmo of scarcity and injustice.

We are hungry. We eat. We are filled... and emptied.

 

-Ann Voskamp in One thousand gifts-