OUR DEEPEST DESIRES

When I was a child, I was so sure of the things I wanted. I knew that my favorite color was red; my favorite subject was science; my favorite friend was my schoolmate, Malou.As I grew up however, things began to change so fast I didn’t even notice what changes had been taking place inside of me. For all the myriad of things I had to learn, and for all the complicated ideas that had been thrusted at me, that little child soon became buried and forgotten, her voice silenced by the noise of other people’s voices – voices I have allowed to enter my own heart.

“You should do this and that.”

“You have to talk like this and that.”

“You should not aspire as high as that – that’s crazy!”

And what do you know? I was soon believing these voices that do not even care enough about me.

I tried to do what the Church deemed right, what the society declared acceptable. I took note of every rule and of every command and still, I couldn’t deny the emptiness that started gnawing at my soul.

I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t living the life I thought I should be living. And even then, the voices did not stop yelling at me.

“You should be happy.”

“You should count your blessings and be content of what you have.”

Can you believe it? They are trying to impose upon me even my own happiness!

I felt something’s terribly wrong, so terribly wrong. Yet it still took me quite a while before I started looking deep within me because I had been conditioned to be afraid.

I was afraid that if I’d look inside, I might find out how evil I really am. Being evil and all, I was afraid that the things I really really desire would not be the same as God’s will for me. Worse, I was afraid to hate God if I find out He doesn’t want me to be happy, that He created me only to suffer and live a life of holy misery, away from all the things I desire, the things that would make me happy.

I was an idiot to even consider these things, but then even idiots get angry, and even idiots find courage to overcome their fears when they get to be angry enough.

Well I got angry enough. Angry enough to ask myself what it is I really want! Of course after all the years of covering them up, it wasn’t that easy to dig them up again. It was a real struggle, and it took me quite a while to see what’s really there. But the deeper you look, the more you wanted to see what’s down there, in the very heart of your being.

And when I finally saw it, when I finally knew what’s there all along, I felt such a great shame all over me. I was so ashamed of being the idiot that I was! Yet it is not because I saw the evil I was afraid to find, but because I saw somewhere in there, in the deepest part of my heart, a sacred seed that God had planted all along.

Our deepest truest desires after all, are not the bad things we thought we wanted to do, but rather, in its purest form, our deepest desires are the holiest part of us, at the very core of our being.

Those desires are so in tune with the will of God that we need not be afraid of God’s disapproval. We need not be afraid of seeking them because it is God’s very will for us to find them so that our joy may be complete.

Indeed, our deepest desires are those that will truly make us happy. Our problem lies in the fact that we have accumulated so much dirt through the years that we believe it to be the desires we’re looking for, when they are not. But underneath this covering is a sacred place, a chamber wherein lies our true desires.

If we can only strive to be true to ourselves, we are sure to find them. And when we find them, we will learn that God wanted us to be happy all along!