Clean and Empty

Lately, I've had a growing emptiness within me. Not a negative kind of emptiness, but a positive, satisfying, clean emptiness. More like the emptiness of a desert, or a mountain top, or being out at sea, beyond the sight of land. This emptiness comes from a beneficial, healing place—not from loneliness, self-pity, futility, or isolation—but from the spiritual, refining fire of experience.

My life is finally ready to be filled with good stuff—positive relationships, healthy communication, being alive and aware in every moment. I'm like an cup or water jar, empty and clean, anticipating cool, clear, refreshing water. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm really living and being, rather than just existing and doing, doing, doing.

This sense of emptiness makes me realize how much recovery has helped me unlearn. Learning that pain has purpose. That hurt holds a healing paradox. That suffering is never meaningless. That my ego can finally surrender and deflate and simply accept, waiting silently to see what God wills to do with this life.

Like that line from Psalm 23, "my cup runneth over . . ." I first had to be emptied of ego and self, before I could be filled.

Thank you, God, for the clean, emptying grace of recovery.

next:Letting Go of Perfectionism