If the words “something’s missing” strike a chord with you, then you may be an enneagram 4 (I am). The enneagram is a personality tool, like Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, that deals with your core motivations. You can find out your personality number on the enneagram through any number of online tests. If you’re a Christian who thinks God can’t use you until you fix what’s “missing”, then this post (and this blog) is for you.
Sparks of a superpower: Going in the wrong direction.
My feet squirmed in the unfamiliar boots. My knee ached from the staccato banging of the ammunition magazine in my leg pocket. Step, whack, step, whack, step, whack.
I licked my lips and ignored my empty stomach squatting in my belly like a shriveled nut. Careful to sweep only my eyes around the room (and not to turn my head so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself), I took in my surroundings: Anonymous racks of beds, coarse blankets, heaps of olive drab camouflage and flocks of young women with darting eyes and busy hands and nervous feet.
The barks and yells of the drill instructors rang shrilly through the hard walls and concrete floors of the barracks.
Calm down, no sudden movements, just breath…I had to repackage my panic into a little box that I could manage. It threatened to grow into a monster and send me screaming from the barracks like the little girl I felt like now. My head towered above every woman in the room, but I wanted to shrink down, disappear, run back to the safety of home. And Parris Island, South Carolina, sure wasn’t home.
And I asked myself the question that stupidity has often dropped on the doorstep of the young and foolhardy:
What have I gotten myself into?
Nine months before, I was adrift, feeling purposeless, useless, and meaningless. Something was missing. I had dropped out of Towson University after a wild bout with depression and manic homesickness.
My little scholarship was gone, and my parents burned with quiet disappointment. It was off to local community college with general education classes and no decided degree major.
I yearned to be something more than ordinary. I considered what would make me tougher, better, smarter – a woman my parents could be proud of, a woman who could make life cry “Uncle!” and give me what I wanted: to belong and to matter and to not be afraid.
The military was an honorable profession in my family, but there had never been anyone in the Marines. If I can do Marine Corps boot camp, I can do anything.
The Marines could take this shy introvert and make her a tough-as-nails warrior. They could strip off my extra weight and make me lean and hard. Oh, and she who couldn’t stand the treadmill would suddenly learn to love running in formation in the pre-dawn darkness.
A great lover of bivouacking? Not so much.
Would there be art and books and lots of time for introspection and deep thoughts? Meh.
What about time to just get away when it all became too much? Ha! Get your bleepity-bleep out of that rack, DeHaven!!! (maiden name, in case you were wondering.)
And the bullied too-tall middle school girl who accepted a zero for gym class that day so she could avoid competitive sports? That willy-nilly wallflower would become a bellowing, brutal, 500-pound-backpack carrying soldier of freedom in an anonymous sea of camouflage.
And on graduation day I would belong to a military force long known for its toughness and heroism – “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” as the song went. I would belong. I would be somebody. Whatever was missing in me would be filled in with tough boots and dog tags.
Three weeks after I arrived for recruit training in South Carolina, my dad picked me up to drive me home to Maryland. New recruits flew to Parris Island, and successful graduates – Marines – flew home at Uncle Sam’s expense for a brief vacation with family. But the failures – like me – were sent home by bus. My father at least spared me that humiliation.
Dim lights: The painful discovery of a superpower.
I learned some painful, embarrassing lessons from my public spectacle. (Digging up the deep roots of fearfulness, self-esteem, using gifts and talents, becoming the person God made me to be, untangling stubbornness, and a host of other lessons that we will explore in future blog posts.)
So, did I join the Marines to be happy? Hardly.
No one goes through 12 weeks of hardship and deprivation for the giggles of it.
Happiness wasn’t enough.
No, I searched for something else. What could be important enough to draw me to the Island of Pain?
The search for my “something missing”. Back then I called it meaningfulness, and that terms works as well as any to name this unnamable feeling that something fundamental other people possessed was lacking in me.
Why in the world did I think Marine Corps boot camp could offer me a meaningful life? I felt like something was missing, and it was missing in me, and maybe the Marines could put the missing piece in place.
- I felt weak – the Marines could make me strong.
- I felt very “other”, like I never belonged – the Marines are a team, and I could be part of it.
- I felt less – the Marines mattered.
- I felt like my life wouldn’t have meaning, and I wouldn’t find purpose unless that “something missing” was found.
The Star Brightens: Superpower
The Marines couldn’t replace my “something’s missing” – and I’m glad they couldn’t.
That’s right. I’m glad. Because I discovered a message that changed everything. Here goes:
That “something’s missing” feeling? It’s not a defect, it’s a superpower.
A superpower.
Your soul feels like something’s missing because something IS missing. We were created to have total, face-to-face fellowship with our creator. While we walk this earth, touching God through a veil, our soul longs to see Him in the bright light of heaven.
This world is not our home, but our mission field.
Our souls are unwilling to settle for lesser things. We crave God.
Our longing, our “something’s missing”, our willingness to stand alongside people who are hurting – that’s not a dark hole, it’s a searchlight.
And it points straight to heaven.
My desire is to help you harness the power of the searchlight and point it in the right direction. Right now, you might be using that light to burn a hole in your soul.
Let’s turn your light outward so other people can see, move toward the brilliance, and look up.
In future posts, I’ll explore how to harness your superpower. Grab your cape.
