Typos. Most of us will have made them. Times when the words we type don’t convey the meaning we’d like them to.
Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re embarrassing, but usually it is fairly easy to decipher the actual meaning.
Typos are generally mistakes easily mended.
But typos also, I find, often carry meaning.
This morning, I received a message from a friend, which mentioned shopping.
‘It can be challenging in the shops tho. The selves are so empty.’
‘Selves’ clearly meant ‘Shelves.’
A mistake easily mended.
And a mistake that carried meaning.
Life is challenging at the moment.
Normal routine has all but disappeared.
We are having to find new ways of being.
It’s more challenging in the shops, because the shelves are ‘so empty’.
Is life (even) more challenging because our selves are so empty?
Perhaps we do feel empty.
Adrift.
Tired.
Unsure.
We can’t seem to stop the emptiness.
There’s a verse in the bible that does not say, ‘Come on, cheer up, make more effort, stop being empty.’
It says ‘He (God) fills my life….’
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Psalm 103:5
God fills our lives with good things.
We don’t need to fill ourselves, but, because God fills our lives with good things, it means they are there.
Maybe it’s hard to see them sometimes, especially now, but they are there.
What is good in your life today?
A cup of tea? A smile from someone two metres away? Sunshine?
Whatever is happening around us, our ‘selves’ are not empty.
In my neighbourhood, and many neighbourhoods across the country, people are pulling together. Messages come through; ‘Do you need anything? I’m in the shop and I’ve seen X/Y/Z on the shelves?’
Yes, those shelves would usually contain A-Z but, by going and looking to see what’s there, things are discovered.
Perhaps new things.
Things people haven’t tried before.
Perhaps your ‘self’ would usually contain A-Z, but now there’s only X/Y/Z, if that.
X/Y/Z is still worth holding onto.
Who knows how you will be filled by it?
God does.
And, because of Him, we can carry on,
trusting that, however empty we feel,
He can – and will – fill us.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31