For the past two and a half years, it has felt like a great internal tug-of-war involving desire, emotion, and reality. When I left Rome in early May of 2018, I was left with this desperate longing to return, and the constant questioning of Why did I have to leave the one place I have felt most at home? For the several months following my begrudged return to the United States, my wanting to return to Rome only grew, and I became entangled in the downward spiral of What’s the point of desiring something if it’s never going to come to fruition? At one point, I expressed this frustration to a priest, to which he replied, exasperatedly, “Because you’re human, Maggie!”
Unfortunately, this way of thinking didn’t end with a priest attempting to knock some sense into me. It only continued as the months passed and the desires for different things grew. Fast-forward to January 2019, and the desire to return to Rome, as I had done exactly a year before, was still going strong; however, new feelings arose, and with them, the frustration of this problem with desire. I was spending the semester in Arizona, and I started to catch feelings for one of the men in my cohort. My first reaction was I don’t want these feelings, this is too small of a community followed shortly by It has never worked with anyone in the past, so why would it work out this time? I was 21 years old, had never gone on a date, and didn’t believe that I would ever go on one. So then continued the train of thought: What’s the point of liking a guy if it’s never going to happen?
Spoiler alert: it happened.
But then, as the days and weeks of dating turned into months and over a year, the question became, What’s the point of dating if we’re never going to get married?
We’ve now arrived at December 2020, with the desires to return to Rome and be married (among others) remaining unfulfilled. So, what is the point (of unfulfilled desires and this post), you ask? Over this past summer, I was struck by the words of the classic Psalm 23, mainly the first verse: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall want for nothing. Other translations conclude the statement with there is nothing I lack or simply, I shall not want.
An important distinction must be made, and I hope that I don’t butcher it. There is a difference, in this context, between desiring something and wanting something. I have often heard the phrase “The Lord never leaves us wanting,” but He does place desires on our hearts. So, what’s the difference? Wanting something, from what I’ve come to understand, involves grasping for it and attempting to control the circumstances surrounding it. Desiring something, no matter how deeply, leaves room for the desire to unfold into something more concrete and creates a space for it to be received with a grateful heart.
The Lord never leaves us wanting because He alone has all we could ever need. With Him, there is truly nothing that we lack. So, why does He place desires on our heart that may never come to fruition, or at least in the way we would like? Desires are able to unfold into something more concrete, that can only be discovered upon investigation below the surface. Our desires can lead us to deeper truths of who we are and who we’re called to be.
In my own life, I’ve watched my desire to return to Rome unfold in several different ways, all of them unexpected. The desire for adventure in Rome unfolded into the adventure of studying in Arizona for a semester. The desire to be immersed in the Italian language unfolded into studying Italian intensively for 4 months. The desire to share my experience in Rome with others came to fruition by a last-minute hiring as a student worker in the Global Studies office, where I was literally paid to talk about Rome with others.
In the realm of dating and discerning marriage, I’ve learned that dating, if done so as a genuine pursuit of another person and potential vocation, is a good in and of itself, even if it doesn’t lead to marriage. It would be a tragedy for me to believe otherwise; therefore, this desire to be married is not futile, so long as I am open to receiving the graces that are being bestowed upon me through this desire with an open and grateful heart.
The problem lies when we let our emotions get the better of us, and suddenly our desires are turned to anguished longings, which, in turn, lead us to believe that God has forgotten us, and we must grasp for things that aren’t ours for the taking. The Lord does not leave us wanting. When we run to Him and surrender the desires He has placed on our hearts, we are able to witness them being purified before our eyes, as our hands are emptied and ready to receive the great gifts He wishes to give us as a fulfillment of desires on our hearts. Ultimately, these desires are meant to lead us back to Him, because within each one is a deeper longing that only He can satisfy.
This is a lesson He has continued to teach me—over and over. I’m still learning that, when I allow Christ to shepherd me, as the Psalm goes, it is then that I am able to receive what He wishes to give me. It is when I seek satisfaction and fulfillment in Him that I am able to view all other things in my life as added blessings.
This season of Advent is the perfect time to practice patience and hope in the waiting, trusting that we will not be disappointed when the time of fulfillment comes. So we’ll keep walking along, friends, trusting that the One who leads us by still waters is continuously restoring our souls and purifying our hearts, so that only goodness and mercy will follow us, all the days of our lives.