You would long for the work of your hands

This week I couldn't seem to do anything right for one of my kids. I messed up on Tuesday, on Friday, on Sunday.  Not for lack of trying - I tried hard. But somehow, everything I did was wrong. I bought the wrong thing, forgot which was the favourite flavour, showed up at the wrong time.

"I hate you!" came withering from a wounded heart.

"At least I'm trying!" I said, "I'm the one you hate, but I'm trying to see you and love you and be there for you!"

My words thudded onto the empty landing as my wounded one disappeared upstairs.

It wasn't about me, I know.

My love wasn't reaching. "You don't matter," my actions said, instead, and "I don't know you."

But my heart ached all along.

I longed for my child.

Then I was shaken by the beauty of this passage of Scripture. 

[15] You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands. [16] For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; [17] my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity. (Job 14:15-17 esv)

Particularly this phrase: 

You would long for the work of your hands.

God, the Creator, the Universe-maker... longs for us. He didn't just make us and walk away.

He longs for us.

And - I think - it's easy to know we long for him. We long to be seen, and known, and loved. We long to have purpose, to be valuable, to contribute. We long for rightness and peace and wholeness.

We want to step outside in the sunshine and feel joy, and to step outside in the darkness and feel peace.

We reach out fumblingly, don't we? 

We create. We cook, we build, we write. 

We hope. We go on, taking the steps even when our hearts aren't in it, doing the next thing with scraps of energy. 

We mourn brokenness. We protest, we converse, we vote. 

We soak up beauty. We sing, we laugh, we cuddle.

We reach toward our Creator. 

We long for him. 

And maybe we don't always see that He ... longs for us.

And if ever there was a holiday to remind us He does, it's Easter. Jesus came to show us His limitless love ... even unto death, even beyond it.

May your longing heart find Him, and may His longing heart find you, this weekend.

Happy Easter, my friends.

He is risen.