He sheepishly holds it behind his back, says, Shoot. I thought you were in the other room...I was going to wrap it. But since you're here...
And his smile pulls me in when he places the book in my hands and I don't need gifts from him because I have him, but I love that in the last minute list I sent him, he knew which one would speak to my heart the most.
Fear straddles the old year and this new one and as I make a nest of blankets for Olivia at the foot of our bed and hold her hair back at midnight and then every 45 minutes until sunrise, this fear whispers in my ear through all the dark watches of the night.
I've known Jesus since I was 4...probably longer since my first memories are of counting the tiles in the ceiling above me while the preacher preached. I've known Him for 30 years and I've pushed away from Him and ran back to Him, I've been unfaithful to Him and returned broken and spent. My faith for years was yo-yo like, always moving, always trying. Always trying to figure out how to love Him.
The snow fell in these big clumpy flakes and winter was finally heralded in. My older two, they danced in the street out front of our home long past bedtime, long past the point of staying warm and dry. This winter was lazy and late and I was fully unprepared with toques and mittens and so I grabbed a mismatch of things and thankfully fashion flew out the window in newness of white and Elias and I hovered close at the window while they twirled and spun in the glory of heaven falling.
I realize I'm tired. So tired of trying to search out how to love Jesus. So tired of trying to fill up my head in hopes of finally filling up my heart. I'm tired of just sitting at the window, I want to fall out into grace falling and I want to let His glory just fall, just cover, just rest...
In between holding a bowl for her heaving and rinsing it out, bleary eyed at the sink - washing my hands for the 100th time it seems - in between crawling weary under covers and knowing that sleep is pointless because she needs her mama, I open the pages.
And had I known - had the truth of Who He is been unpacked like this before...would I have ever been tired? Would there ever had been a need to be?
He begins to name the coming year for me in the hot heat of the summer, begins to open my weary eyes and I track His prints through the Scripture. He leads and I long and I plead, Please. Please show me how to love You.
He speaks it through His Word, that He is steadfast and loving, faithful and kind and I see all the ways that I am not.
Until I see Jesus. Until His Incarnation is unpacked and my union with Him is explained and I can feel it - joy and love filling up my exhausted soul. And I want Him. I want to stop all the running and just stand in the realization that I am loved and He is loving and The Holy God Who created me steadfastly loves me because I am in His Son.
The Abundant God - He hears the cries of His children. He sees the weariness and all the not-quite-enough tries. He sees it, but when we are in Christ - He sees what Jesus has done.
There is rest here - rest for my heart that is done with the how's. I just want the Who.
Now, my track record for follow through has been a bit sketchy at best - but this book by one of my favorite author's is just that good. It is what I wish I had had 15 years ago when I first began all this trying - I want to unpack it chapter by chapter because I'm falling in love like I never have before.
Thursdays? Thursdays here (hopefully consistently) will open pages and underline notes and discover the beauty that Jesus is; feel the love that He has for sinners and find rest in the mystery of union with Him.
Thursdays will find my soul soaking in this truth: that I have undeservedly, incredibly, overwhelmingly been Found in Him.
Thursdays? Thursdays here (hopefully consistently) will open pages and underline notes and discover the beauty that Jesus is; feel the love that He has for sinners and find rest in the mystery of union with Him.
Thursdays will find my soul soaking in this truth: that I have undeservedly, incredibly, overwhelmingly been Found in Him.
There is a line in The Greatest Gift that held me steady throughout the beautiful and hard days of December - and it was this:
The answer to deep anxiety is the deep adoration of God.
A God Who has made Himself known in the face of Jesus. A God Who fills with The Holy Spirit...The God Who loves His own with an immovable love. A steady love.
We can know Him and in knowing Him we can find the deepest love. And the deepest joy.
And we can stop incessantly searching because are already found,
we are found safe and whole in His Son.
