By Rev. Walt H. Windley, Senior Director of Spiritual Care and Grief Services, VIA Health Partners
There’s this well-known secret that exists in adulthood that no one tends to tell you the first time you move. No matter how much “decluttering” you may do, how many trips you make to the local Goodwill store, how many items you decide to throw out and how many “keepsakes” from Kindergarten you store like buried treasure, empty space will always magically fill right back up, as if it can’t survive all on its own!
Give it a try; I dare you! Empty out that closet that is always annoyingly full and just wait…watch…see how long it takes for that space to become the lovingly mess once again that you have always known it to be! It’s like we can’t help ourselves! That space cries out and speaks to our souls, offering an invitation to spend, gather, collect, harvest and glean, as if we are tending to the very emotions equated with hollowness in our homes. And the ultimate irony – we bring in the very things we discarded just months before!
In many ways, we are like that space, constantly creating room and filling our hearts, noting changes in seasons of our lives where we both give and receive. And it’s not that the act of receiving or refilling is bad; in fact, I would argue the notion asserted by Gary Chapman in his Five Love Languages that receiving love fuels our souls like the gas tank in a car, giving us what we need to journey forward with each new day.
However, are we being intentional with that “fuel” or simply taking whatever lands at the doorstep of our hearts, accepting it without question, thought or even reflected sincerity? Arguably, we don’t do well with the notion of empty space. Holding room in our hearts for what may not come or what we can’t fully understand is incredibly tough…even gut-wrenching at times.
In the words of Rev. Marci Glass, “we fill silence with noise. We fill time with busy-ness. We fill ‘having enough’ with wanting more. We fill vulnerability with shows of power.” We have probably all been in that spot before…a place where we didn’t know what to say or felt a loss that created a gaping hole in the story of our lives.
Or maybe we did some hard, internal work to eliminate what has weighed us down, like a traditional deep clean every fall. And no matter how much our intuition told us to be silent or begged us to simply “be,” we hurried to the sounds of chirping noise at the sacrifice of patience and time, clutching tightly to the closest thing that would evaporate the empty space within us.
But did the “fill” actually heal the inward pain? Did it complement the search for hope and meaning where perhaps anxiety had previously been? Did it give a bolster of confidence where insecurity and a lack of self-worth or purpose had taken root?
Is our need to fill the space within a humble desire in our spiritual process of becoming or is it simply a counterbalance to our uncomfortableness with surrender without a designated target or intent? I am not suggesting that we have all the answers or that we can control or dictate the outcome; instead, I would implore all of us to slow down a bit, settle our spirits, ponder what it all means and prayerfully consider what we are making room for in our process of creating empty space.
In about a month, we will offer a toast, watch the clock strike midnight and furiously scribble a few New Year’s resolutions as we march bravely into 2026. I want to offer a few suggestions or tips as we wade into the waters of a new season, involving this idea of intentional surrender, empty space and authentic receiving:
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Do I have the heart and soul space to receive something new in the coming year?
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What “clutter” in my personal life needs to be surrendered or given away to create room for what is to come?
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What “empty space” needs to remain empty for a season as I seek to heal, grieve, reflect or prepare for growth?
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What are my easy “fills” when I have empty space that lacks substance or meaning? Why do I tend to rush towards these things?
We are all a people in process…every single day! May this next year be filled with measured intent, marked growth and recognition of the space within!
