Sehnsucht: The Inconsolable Longing

How do you describe something that you cannot even truly understand or wrap your mind around? Especially a profound, deeply intense and lasting, insatiable "longing." In a word, Sehnsucht. It's a German word which I learned about several years ago though I've experienced it off and on my entire life.

Wikipedia says this about Sehnsucht:

"It is sometimes felt as a longing for a far-off country, but not a particular earthly land which we can identify. Furthermore there is something in the experience which suggests this far-off country is very familiar and indicative of what we might otherwise call "home". In this sense it is a type of nostalgia, in the original sense of that word. At other times it may seem as a longing for a someone or even a something. But the majority of people who experience it are not conscious of what or who the longed for object may be, and the longing is of such profundity and intensity that the subject may immediately be only aware of the emotion itself and not cognizant that there is a something longed for."

This craving that I experience is so compelling, that I've sought out how to fulfill it through various people, places and means (some healthy, many others not so much) over the course of my lifetime. Obviously to no avail. With it, for me at least, comes a deep sadness and an emotional stagnancy that I wish I knew how to rectify, as it can feel quite crippling. Alas, I do not! 

I have come to believe that this profound longing is a hunger, thirst and yearning that only intimacy with God can satiate (though human intimacy can mimic it on a very small scale). With eager anticipation, I wish I might have that passion appeased....but I'm all too aware of the implications.

Until that time comes when it is my joy to go home, or unless and until He pacifies me here on earth, I will remain at times....

~Inconsolable~