What do you say to people who struggle with unfulfilled longings in their hearts? If you think about it, as a counselor, this might very well cover every person we have the privilege to talk to. Whether they are grieving a breakup or lost job opportunity, or even after achieving a dream, they still encounter a sense of emptiness or anxiety. The exercise below offers a journaling guideline, and brief reflections to help people gain clarity about their longings and bring them before God.

I developed this exercise the day after my daughters flew back to Germany. They had spent the whole summer with me in New York City, and the days had been rich with in-depth conversations, fun outings, and lazy breakfasts. My apartment was now silent and the thought of not seeing them for another whole year seemed more than I could bear. I sat down with Jesus and told him about the crippling ache in my heart and asked him for help. My thoughts wandered to some of C.S. Lewis' meditations from, “The Weight of Glory,” and I began to draw. My longings, I assumed, could only be fulfilled by my daughters living in my proximity. But Lewis was suggesting that my daughters only awoke in me longings for something much greater - that all creation points to God Himself. I made a list of the things I loved about my girls and then made a list of how those qualities were found in greater magnitude in God. I then concluded that if I found my daughters, His gifts to me, so wonderful, then what in the world must He, the gift-giver, be like? This led me toward a more passionate pursuit of knowing Him. I would have settled for mud pies; He has given me the ocean.