How He Loves

 

The epiphany: A clear and living picture of how He loves us.

 

Epiphany I:

 

As I was walking across the beautiful landscape of my dear Ole Miss campus some years ago, I realized something simple, yet immensely powerful. Although I would usually be in a mad dash to get to class on time, since I had refused to buy an expensive decal for many years in a row and thus was forced to park in Timbuktu, on this particular day I was on a very leisurely stroll.

 

As I passed the Ford Center, I noticed the intensity of the conversation being held between the bronze statues, surrounded by a fortress of red and yellow tulips so perfect they seemed nearly fake. I felt the breeze carry me across the overpass bridge, and noticed how the beautiful green hills rolled up each side to let the traffic on the street below buzz through (additionally, this is the same bridge that I always associate my friend, Corey Williams, almost killing himself on due to a bicycle chain/jean pull altercation our second week of school, but that’s another story).

 

I neared the Grove, and as I walked through, it happened.

 

I heard a little bird, singing, and I smiled as I heard it’s voice. It lifted mty spirirts and I felt like I could float away with the dandelion seeds on the whispy breeze above the town. In fact, it’s little song filled my spirit so, I raised my hands and said to Jesus, “Thank you for putting that little bird here today so I would hear it and be happy.”

 

And then, the weight and severity of that statement hit me full-on.

 

 

Let that sink in for a second, will you? Just think on it.

 

The love that God has for us is so deep and powerful that He would put all these little crackerjack prizes in my way each day just to see me smile, just to give me peace, just to say, “I love you”.

 

Maybe you are married or have an amazing friend (like my friend, Holly), who loves to leave you presents just so you will know they love you and are thinking of you. Have you ever come home and someone has made up your bed, cleaned your room, and left you a little note? Have you ever been bought a cup of coffee just because a co-worker was thinking of you? Have you ever found a little extra money in your jeans pockets because your mom put it there as a surprise?

 

Imagine this: Every beautiful thing that catches your eye or makes you smile was put there by God as His love note to you.

 

Can you understand the depth of that? A soft wind, a bird singing, the fragrance of a flower, the dance of a bee, the taste of a watermelon, the laugh of a child, the color of falling leaves, the symphony of crickets in the woods at night. Even though He knows most times we willl overlook it, not credit it to Him, not even acknowledge it, He never fails to leave those notes for us.

 

And even though I sometimes don’t even realize it, I sometimes feel entitled to His love. I could never deserve it or earn it, I could never buy it or understand it. But sometimes, I feel like I deserve it a little.

 

Epiphany II:

 

So yesterday, when I was painting over the old yellow paint in the children’s rooms, framing some older Precious Moments murals that someone had painted long ago, I went a little deeper into his love. It came to me,

 

 

THIS IS THE LOVE OF GOD.

 

Not that we chose Him, but that in our sins which He cannot even touch, see, or smell, He loved us. In all that muck and mire, in all that refuse and sewage, in all those abominable blasphemies that crowned our dirty heads like kings of wreckage, CHRIST LOVED US.

 

Can you see it? Can you picture it? Can you even fathom how deep and long and wide and high is the love of Christ, that He should love us so?

 

When I knew that the hardest thing in my life would be losing my daddy, He loved me so much that he brought me away from all those places with painful memories and into a house in Romania where I can share hope to these children who have also lost their daddies. He’s placed me in a new land as my inheritance, that all the nations of the world should know Him and proclaim His glory. He’s placed me in an intensely close family of four sisters and two brothers, who viciously love me, and who are carrying me through this valley together. He has taken me from the hardest situation and is making me for His glory. In a situation that can easily be characterized as the most sorrowful time of my life, He is giving me beauty for ashes. He is showing me His love in the most deeply tangible way. Just as he loved me enough to orchestrate cricket symphonies for my ears at night, He loves me enough to carry all my mourning and shield me from the arrows of grief.

 

Oh, that I could make you understand! His love is boundless, it is wild, it is enormous, it is a canyon, and if we let Him take these griefs which are the size of a stone, He will drown us in His ocean of love. There is no need to carry around your burdens, whatever they may be, because i swear to you, in this season of grief, I have found only joy in wrapping myself closer in the arms of my Savior. He lives to take our griefs and sorrows and pains, He nailed them to the cross and we bear them no more! When my pain overtakes me, I cry out to Jesus, and He takes it all for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets…

               

 

                        Prayers unanswered,

                                                           

 

 

                                                                                         bodies unhealed,

                                                                                                    

 

                                                                                                                                                     hearts unmended…