Will You Fill My Cup?

The ladies Bible study group at my church recently finished the study Finding I Am by Lysa TerKeurst. I have admired her writing and studies for awhile now, she always seems to know the words my heart needs to hear. She has faced similar hardships in her life that I have and her perspective, as well as the way she always points all things back to Jesus, is so encouraging and inspiring. This study definitely didn't disappoint!

Something she wrote about has stuck with me in the weeks since we finished the study, a resonating theme in my own life. She talked about holding out the little cup of her heart and asking others to fill it up - her husband, her kids, her ministry - will they say or do something to make her feel like the best wife/mom in the world? Will her ministry make her feel important and significant? She looks to others to fill a vessel that only God can fill, and ends up disappointed and empty every time. 

I've been holding out my own little cup for as long as I've been a Christian and my question is always the same - "Will you love me like my mom didn't?" I have held this cup out to many women God has brought into my life, desperately wanting the love, validation, encouragement, and support that I see them give so freely to their own children. I hold it out to women who have encouraged me, loved me, and spoken truth into my life but I have also held it out to women who have let me down, hurt me, and walked away - sometimes in spite of all of those things. There's a scene in Bee Movie where Barry the bee finds himself inside a human's apartment and is trying to get out through the closed window. He hurls himself at the pane of glass over and over and over saying, "Maybe this time! This time! This time!" I'm that little bee, holding my little cup out to the same people over and over thinking, "Maybe this time!" You'd think I would learn the lesson but like the bee desperate for freedom, I just keep holding the cup out, desperate for love. 

I would like to think that as I've held my cup out over the last two decades, desperate for these women to love me like a daughter, my cup has been filled to overflowing and continuously sloshes over the edges. Unfortunately, it remains empty more than full most of the time, although to no fault of these women. They are wonderful and amazing and love me to the best of their ability. But, try as they might, they are only human and as Lysa says in the study, "(they) were never meant to be my god." The expectations I hold in my heart for these women to fulfill are impossible because only God can fill that void. Only God can soothe that ache. Only God can bring total healing. Only God's love never fails. 

People were never meant to fill the spot God alone can fill. In my heart, in your heart, in anyone's heart. That's why our world is so broken - people are desperately trying to fill their cups with things that cup was never meant to hold. So they hold it out to someone or something else only be find it empty once more. And the cycle continues. There are times I don't even realize I was holding my cup out to someone until I find myself feeling alone and empty. Then the vision of my heart clears and the empty bottom of the cup comes back into view and I remember my need for Jesus - the only one who can truly fill my cup.