When the Storms of Life Leave You Feeling Empty
A tornado wiped out the entire homestead where my father lived as a child, while the family huddled in the storm cellar.
When my grandmother emerged to take in the total devastation, she teared up and swallowed hard, “Oh Fritz, what are we going to do?” Already imagining the newly-constructed, more modern house and a chance at a better barn, my grandpa said, “We’re going to rebuild.”
My headstrong grandma didn’t like to be told what to do, but she vowed right then to do whatever her husband said needed to be done to re-establish their home.
Their son inherited his father’s optimistic DNA and his mother’s resolve. And yet, recounting the experience, my 84-year-old dad told this story through tender, teary 6-year-old-eyes. Because back then your insurance wasn’t with State Farm or Prudential. It was with your savings, your family, and your neighbors. It was going to be hard, and they were starting from ground zero.
As I write this, I am looking out over my own tornado-wrecked yard that used to boast dozens of 100-foot trees, but now is an expanse of empty dirt. The house has only cosmetic damage. And in ways every storm survivor understands, despite the could-have-been-worse knowing, that emptiness hurts.
Home is forever changed.
But it wasn’t the first time I’ve felt this. From my journal, just after my heart failure diagnosis:
Finally home after two whirlwind weeks in ICU. Glad to be here, but honestly, as I struggle to climb the stairs I spent years longing for and empty the familiar dishwasher, I feel like I’m living in someone else’s house. My heart hurts for the way it used to be.
A NEW EMOTION
Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht named a new emotion for this: solastalgia.
Solastalgia
Term formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by changes in one’s environment. It is best described as the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change.
It puts a word to something many of us feel but struggle to communicate…or justify. It’s actually a form of homesickness we get while we’re still at home, but the surroundings have been altered, making it feel unfamiliar. It is made worse by a lack of control over, and desire for, the change process.
Solastalgia is a big, unwanted change in what we know best. It could apply to a cross country move, a divorce, an empty nest, an unexpected diagnosis, a job that felt like home. Places that we know so well can become foreign, unfamiliar…even barren.
Turns out, the real sting of solastalgia is emptiness.
We have a gaping hole where the familiar used to be.
I spent the most productive years of my life committed to never getting to “E” on the gas gauge, to never having to face solastalgia. When other storms have come through, I held tight to home, and struggled to keep things from hitting rock bottom. As if I could somehow maneuver around an empty nest, an empty future, or an empty seat at the head of the Thanksgiving table.
Most of us share this mentality:
- We pray for abundance in crops and careers.
- We pray we will never be in a position to need a tow, a ride, or a meal.
- We pray for the wound to close as quickly as possible or maybe never come at all.
- We pray our children will not experience emptiness in relationships and bank accounts.
We want our lives, and the lives of those we love, to be full.
EMPTY PRECEDES THE MIRACLE
In God’s economy, empty is more than nothing. It is something big. It’s a clean slate, a blank canvas, an uncluttered closet, a fresh page. “Empty” is a perfect foundation for God to start rebuilding.
The gospel at its core is about emptying ourselves, as Paul says in Philippians 2:4. We need this hollowness to be able to fully receive Him. We need to pour out our own plans to make room for His.
God cannot fill what is full. He can fill only emptiness…so that we can receive fully in our life and let him live his life in us.”
Mother Teresa
Above all, empty is God’s setting for a miracle.
In John Chapter 2, Jesus, his mother Mary, and the disciples were attending a wedding in Cana when Mary observed, “They have no more wine.” The best had been served and containers had run dry. The bride and the groom risked humiliation. In fact, it would bring shame on the entire community. So Mary set her Son’s first miracle into motion by telling the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.”
Jesus asked them to start with empty water jars. Then to draw water and present it to the master of the banquet. The essential wine supply was restored. But don’t miss this: The jars had to first be empty. The water preceded the wine, but the emptiness preceded the water.
The wedding wine jars had to first be empty.
lori ann wood
The water preceded the wine, but
the emptiness preceded the water.
When my son turned one, we used our Canon camera to take some epic photos of the diaper-clad boy devouring his cake. As any good mother did in the 1990s, I dropped the film off at my local store to be sent away for processing. Eager to see the images two weeks later, I opened the package at the photo counter to see strangers on vacation in my envelope. The clerk winced and shook her head, saying she’d see what they could do, but their processing plant printed photos from all over the U.S., so finding the photos was unlikely. Pre-internet and pre-UPC scanners, it was nothing short of a miracle that I actually got my own precious photos back eight months later. The images showing up on time would have been uneventful. It took the glaring, empty Baby’s First Birthday album pages to pave the way for the miracle to take place.
Jesus’s first miracle required man’s empty vessels. Maybe to tell us that emptiness is the backdrop for all the miracles yet to come. Including the best miracle seen through the eyes of Mary Magdalene at the vacant tomb.
Jesus’s first miracle required man’s empty vessels.
Lori ANN Wood
Maybe to tell us that emptiness is the backdrop for all the miracles yet to come.
God takes our own everyday emptiness and makes it into a miracle, too.
I’m staking my own rebuilt life on that promise.
WHAT GOD CAN DO WITH EMPTY
My grandparents did restore their tornado-ravaged homeplace. My older brother and sister even lived in that reconstructed house when they were young. And my grandma was always so proud of that place. Listening to her hopeful husband had paid off. Part of the homestead still stands today as a testament to the real possibilities in starting from scratch. And watching what God can do with empty.
While emptiness can be the blank backdrop for seeing God’s hand move, that Hand doesn’t always fill our emptiness right away. And maybe there’s good reason for that.
A quick resolution can blur the line between our power and His.
While emptiness can be the blank backdrop for seeing God’s hand move, that Hand doesn’t always fill our emptiness right away. And maybe there’s good reason for that.
LORI ANN WOOD
A quick resolution can blur the line between our power and His.
To realize we are empty on our own, we must allow ourselves to feel it, to sit with it. To fully know that we’ve come up short, that we have nothing left. That we’ve run out of real estate, and resources, and reserves.
How did I miss this all these years? For God to fill us—or heal us—we first have to reach that dreaded level of emptiness. And then really know it. At the Cana wedding, as in all the miracles, the need (even the desperation) had to sink in.
And when we allow ourselves that time, God can overflow our expectations, too. Jesus’s first miracle was not only one that proved His power down to the molecular level, it was a miracle of abundance. Turning water into wine showed that Jesus is not only able to meet our needs but also exceed them, to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. The master of the wedding feast realized that the newly-formed wine—the wine that came from the empty jars—was the best that had been offered at the wedding. Better than expected or hoped, and more than enough as Jesus later says in John 10:10.
A PLAN IN PLACE
I like to think God had solastalgia on His mind with this miracle, too. The miracle at the wedding was officially the start of Jesus’s public ministry, demonstrating that God was beginning to fulfill the messianic promises setting His redemption plan into motion. To give us a Home no one can ever ruin or destroy or change.
But it all began, and still begins, with nothing.
With need.
As Jesus’s mother said, bring your empty vessels, your storm-levelled lives, to Him. Realize what a beautiful gift this emptiness is. Experience the gentle grace that comes with knowing your need in Jesus’s presence.
I’m feeling short of breath walking my own barren yard, accepting my solastalgia, listening to suggestions from the landscaper, and whispering a prayer.
Like my grandma stepping out of the cellar, and the servants scrambling at the Cana wedding feast, I’m planning to do whatever He says.
Lorianne! You were in ICU? Oh Honey!
I hope your momma is close! And those sweet children! Rest during that vacation. I’m praying.
You are so sweet, Mary Jo. I am deeply grateful for prayer. Out of the hospital and doing better now.
Lori,
This devotional touched me in the empty places in my life. I have hope that God will take that empty jar and fill it with the best wine.
Janis, this means so much that my words met you where you are. The Spirit has a way of doing that, but I am always in awe. Thank you for sharing, and take good care!
Lori Ann –
Such true and wise words! After our daughter passed, I got VERY busy so I wouldn’t feel the empty. Shock…it didn’t work. 10 months later, I crashed. And slowly, I allowed Him to begin occupying the empty and helping me back to a new normal. Not the same, not what I’d have chosen, but still good, with Him in control. His way is the only way I want. Thank you for your continued faith amidst sadness and trials. And allowing God to use them! Blessings!!
Oh Lisa, thank you for being vulnerable about a nightmare so many of us can’t even imagine. Your faith in the deepest darkness is an encouragement to me and I know many others. Your trial continues to testify of His goodness, despite the emptiness that remains. You are a blessing to me.
“A quick resolution can blur the line between our power and His.” I’m currently in the blur! I still think I can make the medical and insurance establishments work more efficiently and quickly by my incessant calling! It’s not working and I’m weary and depressed by my lack of success. I’m now slowing down to embrace the empty-ness of this valley and turning my eyes heavenward to the sun and clouds knowing that if I were a bird I would be able to see how temporary and short this valley is and how beautiful the panoramic view! Thank you Lori, for your faithfulness in sharing encouragement and insight. You’re such a timely blessing in my life!
What a beautiful picture of how God cares for us, Hannah. I love the thought of a bird flying over our valley and taking in the brevity of what we see as endless. I will treasure this image. Thank you.
I was just telling Jesus, last night, that I am tired. Reading your post helped me to realize that what I am is actually empty.
Working 2 jobs, working to get a diagnosis for my husband, who has been unable to work for months, including doctor appointments and referrals and paperwork and copays, supporting him as he is the primary caregiver for his father, who came home from the hospital on Hospice, supporting my aging parents with trips to doctors, taking care of the garden and the chickens and dogs and house and keeping us all fed and clothed.
Yes, I am empty. Holding my hands up in worship as I wait for the miracle of enough strength to do it all again, today.
Praying for the ladies who have posted their trials and for you, Lori.
Oh Jenn, you have so much on your plate, and that so often leaves us completely empty. It sounds like you are holding on, like so many of us, and staking your life on the promise of restoration, more, and God’s very best to fill our emptiness. Thank you for sharing, encouraging me and others. You have blessed me today with your contagious faith despite your deep trials. I’m adding you to my prayer list. Please stay in touch.