She speaks those words into the dark, those words she has to say before she'll let me leave. Those words that once were only cute—when she first made it a habit to say them each night—yet now, could make me cry. “Miss you...” she calls, just before the door closes. And she waits in the darkness for my voice to come back to find her.

“Miss you,” I call to the open heart waiting.

A small little exchange that might have eventually just faded and been replaced by the next quirky three-year-old habit...if not for that one moment when the Lord surprised me with His own voice undergirding hers. 

For He says the same to us at times.

When Jesus says, “I miss you”

The pure tiny voice that spills from the top bunk bed, blonde waves piled around uplifted face, He shot like an arrow into my deepest heart, and I knew it was His voice finding me.

“Miss you,” He whispers into the darkness, as I smile awkward, unsure what He  means.My logic corrects: You cannot miss someone you are near to. Yet His eyes are pools of purity much like the little girl who speaks it to me each night. Pools of purity tell me without words that there’s something I don’t see.

And I am caught there, standing in the dark, knowing that the words I thought I should correct just lovingly corrected me."

“I want your heart again,” He says with these words.

And He waits in the darkness for my answer, unwilling to let the day close without a heart more open.

Return to Your First Love

His words are like a light descending to the inward parts, exposing the dust I didn’t know had settled on my spontaneous affections, prayers and songs.

How are there cobwebs on the frame of the door I thought was continually swinging?

Passing conversations and going through the motions never replace that full heart-yielding affections He waits for. “Return,” comes the yearning heart of the One who won’t let me close the door just yet. “Do what you did at first,” He pulls (Rev. 2:4).

Remember when you couldn’t bear to go to bed at night because My presence was so sweet? Remember when you’d wake in the morning with fresh expectancy—eyes wide like a child? All of life was this. You’d spend your days in one long search for me, always with heart on the line. Some days you’d end in tears, longing streaming hot upon your cheeks. Others, you’d hang your heart content after a whole day’s searching and the treasure at last of a flower found, rain falling, or a sunset painted – that you believed from Me.  I was your first hunger in the morning and your soul’s satisfaction in the closings of the day. Or even not so long ago, when winters cold wouldn’t let you go and you lifted your voice up so desperate, so single-heartedly, without a second option or plan? Do you remember? I do.

“Miss you,” He whispers into the shadows, wrapping cords of kindness around my soul and drawing me back to first affections (Hos. 11:4; Rev. 2:4).

“Miss You too," I whisper back.

And the door closes.

But the heart stays open.