“Daughter, why are you crying?”

As women, we know what it means to just need a good cry. We know what it is to be strong all through the day, often for weeks at a time, and then suddenly there comes that one night where we find that we can’t sleep. It isn’t because we’ve got too much on our minds; indeed, that’s only the reason we give ourselves. It isn’t even because we drank that last coffee too close to bedtime; that’s merely another excuse. No, oftentimes it’s because there, in those quite hours when even the busiest cities seem to sleep, our souls stir and our hearts cry out for more. More life. More love. More adventure. Not more of the material things that might make our lives easier, but more of the out-of-the-ordinary and the awesome, more of the stuff fairy tales are made from, and what so many of us can only vocalize as more freedom.

Freedom to do what, though? Or rather, freedom from what? Is it freedom from the doldrums of everyday life that we seek in those quiet moments? Is it freedom from the hectic pace of the world? Is it freedom from whatever flaws we see in ourselves that make us feel inferior to others? In those early morning hours, what is it that we’re really seeking?

My dear sisters, how many times have you asked yourselves the same questions I’m posing now? How many of you have sat there feeling small, alone, lost, confused, and, quiet honestly, somewhat disappointed with the way life is turning out thus far? How many times have tears stung at your eyes, begging to spill over while you’ve felt that no matter how hard you try, things just don’t ever seem to work out right?


How long is it going to take us to realize that the reason we’re feeling this way is because we’re incomplete? When we’re feeling alone, it’s because we’re not whole; when we’re feeling far from home, it’s because our citizenship is not of this world. No matter how hard we try to make ourselves fit in here, no matter how hard we work to be successful in work or at home, no matter how much we give of ourselves to make life work out the way we want it to, nothing is ever going to be “perfect”. We’re supposed to want more, and we’re supposed to feel this churning in our very souls for something more pure, more glorious, more adventurous, more God.

Yes, I said more God. If you look deep down into your heart, I’ll bet you that you’ll find something unfulfilled, empty, and aching. Something that no amount of beauty has been able to fill, no amount of love has been able to overcome. Like in the song, it is a God-shaped hole, and only He can fill it. Only He can take us on the adventures we’ve been created for. Only He can love us until we are fully satisfied, and indeed, spilling over. Only He is the more that our souls are crying out for.

We may have some really wonderful things going for us in our lives, but we will still have that gnawing feeling that something is amiss until the day comes when we get to go home—carried away in the arms of the greatest Lover we have ever known.