Running on Empty? Good. And Other Thoughts on Vacuuming...

So...I am my mother’s daughter.  I assume for many reasons but among the most recently obvious is my love to vacuum.  Perhaps more than I love to vacuum, I love the look of a vacuumed floor.  In my life, a vacuum is among the most essential of household items and not having one for more than a week or two is a near travesty. 

Imagine my delight then when, upon mentioning the need to find a reasonable or perhaps rejected vacuum cleaner last fall my sister and brother-in-law came to my rescue.   As newlyweds they had been gifted some great piece of dirt-sucking machinery and would gladly give me possession of their previous device. 

Granted this previous vacuuming device appears to be 30 years old and was Steve’s grandmother’s before it came to be theirs and certainly before it became mine. 

But it was free.

And it worked.

And it would be mine.

Stoked!

I brought it back and vacuumed my whole apartment.  

Glee. 

It wasn’t the world’s most impressive piece of equipment but it was leaving the floors looking swept and it was far better than nothing.  Not to mention, what was I going to expect out of a stone age piece of equipment? 

Needless to say, the health of this prized possession seemed to be declining.  It’s sucking power was just not remaining adequate and I was beginning to consider breaking down to make a legitimate vacuum cleaner purchase.  But not today.  The puttering but faithful would just have to do for a while longer.  Which meant I was going to have to change the bag. 

Change the bag I did.  I hadn’t touched the bag since it was gifted to me several months ago.  And it was fuller than I had thought and probably well past over-due.  In fact the bag I removed didn’t match at all the bag I replaced it with.  Ah well.  Here was to praying the thing would last a couple more months.

And then I flipped on the switch.

Two words: 

Power. House.

The vacuum cleaner took off almost on its own and gripped the carpet like a champion while hoovering fragments of floor dirt from seemingly a foot away.

This mind?  Blown!

Here I was ready to replace the vacuum cleaner.  Believing it had served long and well but would need to be retired.  Instead, all it needed was to be emptied.

In a life of irony, almost every other thing in the world runs better when full.  A full tank of gas.  A full battery.  A full stomach.  A full night’s sleep.  We draw analogies and tell people not to run on empty. Ever.

Unless of course...you’re a vacuum.  A vacuum needs to be empty to run at its prime.

Not always, but sometimes, I not only am but want to be and need to be a vacuum.  I need to be empty.

They seem like strange words to write. 

No one wishes to be empty.  The feeling of emptiness is often accompanied by a hopelessness and mourning for what isn’t.

But a vacuum...a vacuum can only be filled if it is first empty (evident by my own champion Hoover).

Emptiness proceeds fullness.  I love the imagery of Isaiah 58:11 where it reads “The LORD will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land [in a place of emptiness] and will strengthen your frame.  You will be a like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” 

I am reminded of the contemporary worship song with the chorus “Hungry I come for I know you satisfy...  Thirsty I come for I know your well does not run dry...” 

Even the beatitudes include a note about being blessed for hungering – for those will be satisfied (Luke 6:21).  And Psalm 107:9 promise that God satisfies the thirsty and gives the hungry good things. 

If we come full – chances are we’re only full of junk and garbage.  And if I come full, I can almost guarantee that junk and garbage is me.  I am full of me as much as anything the world seeks to destroy me with.  The combination gets in the way.  Get’s in the way of an opportunity to be filled – to be satisfied.

Like a vacuum, I do my best “work” when I’m void of the garbage.  And I do even better “work” when the empty void created at the loss of the things which don’t matter and hinder is replaced by the filling God wishes to do and to be in my life.  [Would I turn into a champion?  A power house?] 

Lent is about to begin.  Cliché misunderstandings aside, Lent includes a time of reflection.  A time to reflect on the junk that fills a life and keeps it from doing the work it was created and designed to do.  To go into the next 40 days empty.  That I might be satisfied and filled...