How do you fill your downtime? I have this problem of feeling like I need to fill my downtime. I struggle with not having anything to do, even though I tell my children boredom is a good thing! Hobbies are usually a good place to start in finding something to do. These days, it’s knitting for me.
Why do we feel the need for an occupation to fill our downtime? Sometimes we’re afraid of being bored. Sometimes we avoid our thoughts because of the pain we might bring up if we let our thoughts get out of control. So we fill up that downtime with meaningless things to distract us from the pain we’re feeling. The problem is that we still feel empty, despite our best efforts to distract ourselves.
A month after we lost our son Titus, I sat down in front of my laptop at the dining room table. I had a bit of downtime before lunch to look at something. But as I powered my laptop on, something went wrong. It wouldn’t turn back on. I tried a few things to get it booting up again, but there was no success. I phoned my husband who works in IT.
“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” I wasn’t certain if Leon was being cheeky, but at the moment, it wasn’t funny. At last, we determined the error code I got from my laptop told us the hard drive had died.
Ordinarily, this isn’t a big deal, but the day was already emotional. I spent that morning packing away all of Titus’s clothes. Some of his clothing still smelled like him, and it brought floods of tears and memories. Grief stormed in like a tidal wave and pivoted a good day into a bad one. Having the hard drive on my laptop die pushed me over the edge. I began learning a valuable lesson that day.
What do we turn to when we have downtime? Is it a hobby or social media? Do we find the latest film or series to watch on Netflix? When we go through a tough season or a grieving a loss, it’s tempting to escape the pain, and fill that empty time with something distracting. I’m not saying these distractions are bad. My broken laptop removed my distraction, forcing me to grieve and not avoid it.
Grieving Deeply
Grief and feeling empty is an unfortunate part of life. This discomfort is unavoidable. You know this if you’ve suffered any kind of loss. It creeps up in the most unexpected ways, and we have to deal with it. It’s painful. We often try stuffing it down so we don’t have to work through it. Sometimes, God uses our downtime, even frustrations like a broken laptop, to address the issues we try to avoid within ourselves. He gives us an empty space in our day-to-day activities so He can bring healing to our hearts. When my laptop broke, I had to do other things instead of avoiding my grief over Titus’s death. I read books about grief, began processing our journey with Titus, cried, grieved, and worshipped. God opened my heart to letting Him work help me work through my pain. It was hard. But it was beautiful.
“Perhaps part of our fear comes from the fact that an empty place means that something may happen to us that we cannot predict, that is new, that leads us to a place we might not want to go. I might not want to hear what God has to say.
‘Here is the place for cultivating an open heart. Discipline is the concentrated effort to create some space in our lives where the Spirit of God can touch us, guide us, speak to us, and lead us to places that are unpredictable, where we are no longer in control.”
—Henri Nouwen, Turn my Mourning into Dancing
When we walk with the Lord, we have nothing to fear, including those empty places in our lives when we’re tempted to escape whatever it is we’re going through. We don’t need to fear the pain that will surface when we let the Lord help us work through our grief and pain.
The Blessing of Empty
Three years ago, we felt weary. It’s an emotion many felt as we embarked on our third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2021, the UK relaxed COVID restrictions even with a new variant, preventing a further lockdown. Even as restrictions lifted, we still felt tired and empty. We had just been through two years of lockdowns and restrictions, and we were grieving the losses we’d experienced during that season.
Being empty isn’t bad. The world was dark and empty before God created it. He filled the space with His creation. If God created the universe from nothing, what can He do with our emptiness? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that God has already filled us with Himself through Jesus.
“Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.”
2 Corinthians 4:7-10 (CSB)
If we allow Him, God willingly takes our emptiness and fills it with Himself. When His Son died on the cross, he poured himself out so that we may be filled with Him. What a beautiful picture.
“God sees the emptiness in your life as His greatest opportunity because God does His best work with empty as He fills it with Himself.”
—Nancy Guthrie, Even Better than Eden
If you’re here, and you’re hurting, is there an empty place for God to help you work through the pain? What or whom are you filling that empty place with? I pray you will allow Him to fill your emptiness with Himself.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about my laptop… Weeks later, Leon and I worked to restore my hard drive—to get my laptop ready to install a new one. We contacted Dell to get the ball rolling on replacing the hard drive (which was still under warranty). Miraculously, we didn’t need to. Miraculously, my laptop was working at its full capacity again—and I didn’t have any problems with it after that. God truly used that time to get me away from technology and grieve fully. It was a time to be truly grateful for.
