What Fills So Many Holes (Chapter Six)

Dervish wind grabs ancient pecan tree and wrestles it to the ground. Across the street it had stood sentinel of history and witness of time since the Declaration of Independence was signed. It goes down with a fight. There is a hole in the sky and a hole in earth where the tree had spread root and limb. The holes gape wide, open-mouthed, silent.

A Patch of Light in a Dervish

Men armed with chainsaws, ropes, and pulleys step around and climb over mangled limbs. Saws eat and roar for more. Pulleys clang, ropes strain, men sweat, and always the constant roar carves through the battleground. Massive disks of trunk are hauled away. The family keeps one, though, and makes it into a patio table.

Heads tilt back in upward remembrance of what was there, in upward recognition of what is open hole now. They break bread together, thankful because what was there was so good that it is sorely missed now. They are thankful because of Communion promise: “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:27).

Peace fills the holes.

Thanksgiving fills the holes.

I stand outside in the backyard while yellow dog sniffs out the morning, and I look up long, rough lengths of pecan tree. My eyes climb woody heights, eighty feet of arms and hands browned as if by age and sun. It’s an old man tree, clapping, swaying, creaking, groaning a shuffling praise dance up and up and up.

I crane my neck back just to watch this worship, and maybe it’s strange, but in the worship I look for holes. Leafy shadows feather across my face and flutter wings of peace, Spirit dove. And, aha, there they are in the shadows—spaces dappled between leaf and branch. Sky itself.

And I begin to see the holes differently. I see them there, between leaf and branch—holes as deep as the Creator’s heart. I see them here behind the living sway and life always in motion—the still heart of God’s holes. His heart searches them out between leaf veils, cloud veils, and the sun veil. His heart probes for holes between the stars, black-hole space, space beyond the end of the universe.

His heart fills the holes.

Prayer Fills Holes

I hear it, feel it. It’s a holy morning in my backyard, a barefoot holy morning, no shoes to remove. I lift my hands high, and sky pieces jig and saw with tree pieces. It’s a fluid puzzle, a kaleidoscope.

I read this morning, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image."

The first person who loved me did so when I was perfectly full of holes. Unholy. It wasn’t another like me but the one who is perfectly whole—holy. God.

He doesn’t twist me into His own image but fits me into His own image.

He fit me securely in holy breath breathing life into Eden dust. “Let us make man in our own image” (Genesis 1:26–27).

And He is fitting me this morning.

I am fit into His image: barefoot on dew on grass on earth.

And I have Eden wonder.

It’s morning, and all He gave then remains even now.

It’s in my backyard.

It’s a wonder that it was all a gift to fit into the hole of nothingness before He created life. Praise filled every place, I’m sure, when He said, “Let there be.”

At that time holes gaped everywhere.

God’s gift fills the holes.

Moonlight Fills Holes

I’m looking for holes, searching for them in a jigsaw tangle. I glimpse the heart of God in the puzzle, how He fills what gapes wide in what tangles tight. I turn squinting eyes inward. I close them to better see my jigsaw heart—the jig of praise, the sawed holes.

Sometimes holes are sawed open so that they may be filled with praise.

A breath of wind parts leaf from leaf, branch from branch, high in the tree.

There's a pause in its praise. Selah.

But the wind opens a wide-eyed, gaping mouth hole, and it kind of hurts.

I hold my own breath.

Breathless is how I feel sometimes.

But then, I’m learning to look at holes and pauses differently.

The opening above lasts a breath, a Selah pause, and then closes full with whoosh and rush, branches, leaves, and old man tree praise.

Praise fills the holes.

Breathing Fills Holes

There are holes along the path in my garden where I’ve had to dig up dead plants. There is a gaping hole in my rose garden where my most prized bush suddenly shriveled and died within the week. The bush had filled the dining room window and glowed iridescent when approaching lightning storms turned the air itself green.

There are holes, empty chairs, around my kitchen table. I remember filling those chairs one at a time. First I filled the high chairs and booster seats, and then my children sat on the grown-up chairs, chins at table height and plate level. Two sons are now married, and one daughter is halfway out with one foot in college and the other at home. A pregnant pause. Selah.

There are holes of quiet where before a houseful of rambunctious children hummed loud and where dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer sloshed, whirred, thumped off kilter, and spun every waking moment and sometimes into the night.

And there are soul holes. They are weighty.

Who would have thought? That open space, air, too much silence, is heavier than enormous hardwood trees, rosebushes heavy with scent and bloom, an armful of toddler and infant on hip, and the time when two teenage sons swung like Tarzan down at a creek on poison vine. Nothing is heavier to a mother’s heart than brave man-boys fighting tears and losing a little.

Life Fills Holes

I call yellow dog. And I call to God, “So many holes!”

“My peace I give to you,” He says. And then He says what I don’t want to hear: “In all things give thanks.”

I balk. “What do You mean? What sincerity is there in me when I thank You for a shriveled rosebush that I loved? For a house too quiet and a table too empty? Heart of God, will You fill these soul holes I try not to feel?”

“I filled the heavens and the earth when there was nothing, and it was good. I filled empty jugs with water that became wine, and the wedding guests rejoiced. I filled five thousand hungry people with two loaves of bread and five fish, and my servants marveled in amazement. I filled empty nets, and the fishermen recognized Me. And I filled Peter’s sifted, gaping, and wide-open heart.”

“Oh. Well, yes, there is that.”

So that’s what He means.

Holes are fit for what He’s going to fill them with.

Holes are there because from the beginning there was a hole. The very movement of life is holed. And I am holed.

Holes are the weighty pause between empty and filled. The hungry void between too little and more than enough. The Selah pause, the pregnant hope, the holding of my breath. Holes are uncomfortable. I’ll hurt between breaths and in the Selah stillness.

I’m sure I’ll forget most of this when I feel most filled with holes.

But right now I'm remembering.

And right now pauses breathe.

And Selah stills.

And right now I'm barefoot on dew waiting to be fit into His holy image.

And that’s a start for when I fill a soup pot halfway and know that the bread I baked will last three times as long. I’ve taken to giving loaves to my sons’ wives.

Giving fills holes.

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

(adapted from my book, PISTEUO! Connecting with God's Heart)