“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2). One does not typically think of the void, or the emptiness, or the negative space of a pot as an important element. In fact, if we look at a container, we might see the bottom and the walls of the container, or the lid, but we don’t really see the void in the middle of the container at all. After all, unless the container is full, there’s nothing there. But that void, that nothingness, is the only thing that separates a wooden bowl from a block of wood. You can’t have a vessel without a void. “Nature abhors a vacuum”, said Aristotle, and most of us would tend to agree. If we fill an emptiness inside of us, then start filling it with whatever is closest at hand in a panicked rush. But the void isn’t bad in and of itself. Jesus Christ didn’t say that those who were hungry and thirsty and empty were cursed, but blessed, because they would be filled. A vessel may be filled and emptied hundreds or thousands of times. It is estimated that the average person will have their heart filled and emptied of blood around two and a half billion times. And our hearts are not valuable to us only when they are full. We have to empty our hearts of the deoxygenated blood before we can let the oxygenated blood back in. When life empties us out, we may feel fear and doubt that we will ever be emptied again. When we are full to the brim, we may be tempted to seal the lid on tight so we don’t have to let any of our peace and joy out ever again. But if we are to truly be vessels of the Lord, then we have to grow accustomed to the idea that sometimes we will be empty. This does not mean that we are failures or lost or damned, or that we are somehow worse than everyone else. All vessels are built around a void. Emptiness is perhaps the most important part of a vessel. It doesn’t matter if we are made from porcelain or plastic, gold or lead, if we are in mint condition or chipped and battered, if our form is elegant and graceful or lumpy and misshapen. What matters is that we are empty enough to be filled with our Savior’s grace. The Pure love of Christ will transform our vessel from the inside out, but only if we have the humility to empty ourselves of everything that matters less. When God created the Earth, the first thing He created was the void so that He could then fill it with all of His beautiful creations. I hope that we can overcome our fear and mistrust of emptiness and the void, and embrace these wonderful gifts of our Heavenly Father and recognize that it is only through emptiness that we can be filled.
