a kingdom built of seeds

Not long ago, I read a short biography of Mother Teresa in 7 Men and 7 Women (by Eric Metaxas). There’s a part that resonated with me.

By 1950 [Mother Teresa] had devised a constitution for the Missionaries of Charity–the name God had given her when she first heard her “call within a call.” In the first and in every subsequent Missionaries of Charity chapel hangs a crucifix and the words “I thirst”…“These are, of course, the real words of Christ on the cross. But to Mother Teresa they have always expressed Christ’s desire, indeed His yearning, for us to love him.”

“I thirst.” These words won’t leave me. Because humankind knows what it is to thirst. 

May these words be forever imprinted on my soul. They are the words of God himself, and of the world. They are the words uttered in darkness, heard only by those who will enter the same darkness. Who will heed them? Will I? 

As Jesus, on the cross, God experienced the deepest human isolation from and thirst for–love and belonging. He knows what it means to be alone, to be without hope. And in that death God knows what it means to be found by God.

Just like us, God knows what it is to thirst.

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