Tu me manques

Apparently in French you don’t say “I miss you.” You say “tu me manques” which means “you are missing from me.” I love that. It has so much more depth than just “I miss you.” It suggests that you aren’t complete without the other person. That they are of real significance to you and their absence has an impact on your life.

It makes me think that my 4 year old may have a little French in him. Earlier this year I went on a week long business trip to the States (that’s a long time for a little 4 year old). Ever since then interchangeably with him saying “I love you” he started saying and still often says “I missed you in America”. To him it’s one and the same. When he says I missed you, he is saying I love you.

St Augustine wrote at the start of his confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” For me it is a perfect translation of sorts of “tu me manques.’ We are restless when God is missing from our lives. We have a God shaped hole that we seek to fill. It is a yearning that is infinite and unable to be quenched through worldly means. Peace comes, rest comes, completeness comes when we find God.

“My soul is yearning for you, my God” (Psalm 42:1)

“O God, you are my God, for you I long” (Psalm 63:1)