An Absence of Love

Every once in a while, one of my kids will come up to me because they are having a bad day.  Something has gone wrong in their day and  they and are in need of daddy cuddles. [Which have been proven in studies to be better than mommy cuddles]  So, we'll snuggle up and watch some television and after awhile they feel better.   I have to admit that sometimes I feel the same way.   I'll be in the dog house with the wife.  I feel like I'm up against the world at work.   None of my friends will return my texts.  I'm just feeling unloved.  My wife calls it a "pity party."

Call it a pity party.  Call it feeling sorry for yourself.  Call it whatever you will.  I think we all feel unloved at some point or another.  It may be accurate but it's a feeling none the less.  We see it all around us.  Everyone is looking for love.  They are looking for happiness in one thing or another.  In my job, I see a cross section of society and I see people doing it all wrong.   On a Friday or Saturday night, I see men and women in my city's entertainment district out looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right--or at the very least Mr. or Mrs. Right Now.   I go on calls and see people looking for happiness in a crack pipe or a bottle of gin.  I see guys and gals looking for happiness by selling themselves on the street corner.  I see the business man looking for happiness by going to the seedy hotel and picking up a prostitute and getting crack.   I see it in my fellow officers who work second jobs so they can afford a bigger house or a boat.  Or the officers who are putting their spouse and children through divorce because of their search for happiness and love.

It doesn't take a lot of common sense to realize that love and happiness doesn't come in getting high or drunk.  It doesn't come is hooking up for a night or paying for a good time.  It doesn't come in material things.  And it certainly doesn't come in abandoning your family for someone who you think will give you a better life.

No.   Love and happiness only comes from one place.  Pope John Paul II said it best when he said at World Youth Day, "It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you.... It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humble and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal."   

Yeah--It's Jesus we seek when we are seeking happiness.  Nothing else will make us truly happy.   St. Augustine said, "My heart is restless until it rests in you."   Stop looking.  He is right there waiting on you.   Find a quiet place today and pray.  Listen for Him.   If you can't find him?  Keep praying.  He's there.    The only time we are really truly absent from love is when we are absent from God.  The only way that is going to happen is when we've turned away from Him.  So turn around and go back to Him.  Feel His love burning inside of you.  It was there all along.