I won't be going to a Lady Gaga concert soon. But tons of people have and will. To some, the headline-generating singer is just another cultural side show. But at least for now, the entertainer known for her bizarre outfits and wild performances, is an A-list celebrity and a cultural icon.
And - it's all too easy to forget - she's a person. Like all of us, a person with a story. She's starting to tell some of that story. As I read part of it yesterday, I felt sad. For all of her stratospheric success in the spotlight, there's apparently a lot of hurt offstage.
In an upcoming Vanity Fair interview, Lady Gaga says, "If I'm supposed to end up like some crazy casualty, then that's my destiny...I love show business. I need it. It's like breath...when the spotlight goes off, I don't know quite what to do with myself."
I thought, "That's not just Lady Gaga. The 'spotlight' eventually goes off for all of us. And when it does, it exposes the hollowness inside." The "spotlight" that's "like breath" can be a relationship that made you feel valued...a job or a position that gave you some worth...children who needed you and validated you...an arena of accomplishment that gave you some recognition. But every spotlight eventually goes off. And leaves you with whoever you were and whatever you had before there was a spotlight. As one former Olympian said, "If you don't know who you are before you win the gold, you won't know after the gold is in your hand."
In the interview, Lady Gaga went on to talk about another sadness that many know all too well - disappointing relationships. "I have never felt truly cherished by a lover. I have an inability to know what happiness feels like with a man...It starts out good...and then they hate me...I had a man say to me, 'You will die alone in a house bigger than you know, with all your money and hit records, and you will die alone.'"
Brutal stuff. Of course, you don't have to have a big house, big money or a big name to know how empty a relationship can leave you feeling. Because it was supposed to answer your loneliness and satisfy your heart. But even the best of relationships turns out to be good, but not good enough. To fill the hole in our heart, that is.
And that's where Jesus comes in. The Jesus who met a woman at a desert well, whose restless heart had never found rest in her serial relationships with men. Jesus told her that whoever kept trying to satisfy their thirst from human "wells" would always be "thirsty again." "But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life" (John 4:13-14). What you cannot find at the top of the mountain, what you cannot find in the depths of a relationship, can be found in the love of Jesus Christ.
For 2,000 years, Jesus has been the sustaining fulfillment for millions of us when life's spotlights go off. He's been the one love that's cherished us like no other - to the point of laying down His life so we wouldn't have to die for our sins. Until we commit ourselves to this God who gave His life for us, our hearts are, in the Bible's words, "like the tossing sea which cannot rest...there is no peace" (Isaiah 57:20-21).
There's good news here, though. At the point when we're feeling the aching hole in our heart, we're one step away from the only One who can fill it.