How He Loves

The first thing I notice is the color.  The colors here are more intense, more beautiful than anything I've ever seen.  The deepest green; the most vibrant, dark pink; the crispest blue sky.
Heaven? I wonder to myself.  No; I don't know how, but I know it's not heaven.  It's here.  It's now.

I see myself, dressed comfortably in jean shorts and a T-shirt, walking along a path.  I'm laughing -- giggling, even.  My heart leaps inside of me in a way I can't explain.  Indescribable joy, bubbling up into laughter I can't hold back.  Not the hysterical kind, not the polite kind, not the funny kind; but the kind that comes from a deeply happy heart.

I'm not alone; Love is here with me.  He takes my hand, and my smile grows even larger, if that is possible.  He shows me the intricate details of the flowers we walk alongside.  He points out a squirrel who startles and runs as we approach, his tiny little feet bringing yet another smile to my face.

The slightest crisp breeze brings a fresh feeling to the already fresh spring day.  Everything is perfect.  "This day is for you," He tells me, and somehow I know that this is not a "day" in the way we think of a day; it is a season, a season of the heart.  My spirit is a flower-filled, verdant garden, but the joy I feel is from the presence of my Father in that garden.  He is the one who makes it grow; He is the one who turns it green; and He is the one who brings laughter bubbling out of my mouth.

He smiles at me, a smile His face can barely contain.  "This is how I love you."

The vision disappears, another taking its place.


There is no laughter here.   It's quiet; it's bare.  The sky is flat, the air hot and dead.  Not a breath stirs.  There is no rustling of leaves, no scurrying of squirrels.  All I can see for miles is sand.  Hot, gritty, and barren.

My skin is burning as the sun beats down on it mercilessly.  I know I would be crying, but the desert has dried out my tears; I need every last drop of hydration just to stay alive.

But I'm not alone.  He's here.  I see Him waiting, and I know I've rebuffed Him time after time.  He could shelter me if I asked Him, but I've insisted on remaining on my own.  There's something so human about the desert; standing on my own brings me an ache I'm not sure what I would do without.

But remembering the times we've shared in the garden, I make the choice. I let Him come, and become lost in His shadow.  In His arms, a cool breeze begins to rush over me.  He's close, closer than I've ever let Him be before; I need Him close.  I need healing.  His presence is water to my dry heart.

It is not the same as the garden; but we are so close, I cannot wish to be anywhere but here.  He brought me here for a reason: If we stayed always in the garden, I would never have realized how near He could be, how near He wants to be.

And even as the sun beats down around us, He whispers tenderly that He holds all my tears in a bottle, even the tears that have never left my eyes.  His strong, deeply emotional voice tells me that He will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.

He whispers once again: "This is how I love you."

And in the middle of the desert...joyful laughter begins to bubble up.


The garden will be all the more intimate because of the desert; the desert is bearable because I remember the garden, and allow Him to come and speak words I would otherwise find superfluous.

Both are so necessary.

Both are His love.

Intriguing Title*

My high school's free planner was pretty ridiculous.  I loved my planners, and I kept all of them -- they not only document the dates of most of the significant events of my high school career, but I also gave them awesome covers (do the words "fairy hippo baby" make you as happy as they make me?).  But these were those school planners that had inane "quizzes" in the corners about topics such as, "Are you a responsible person?" and "Are you a kind person?", determining the answers through questions that most likely involved baby whales, trees, and recycling (not that there's anything wrong with that).

One of these weekly "assignments" was actually rather meaningful.  I don't think it was an original idea, as I've heard it again since, but I liked it.

The silly little box in the corner of the page that was only useful when I was extremely bored...asked me to write my own obituary.

I never did it.  I recall some thoughts about Mt. Everest and bungee jumping, but beyond that I never put much thought into it.  I was in tenth grade, I had forever to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

But as I've watched people around me, I've discovered that so much of what we dedicate our time to will be so useless at the end of our lives.  The time to decide how we want to be remembered is now, and the time to start living that way is now.

What will people say one day, hopefully years from now, when they consider your life?

Imagine the following scenes -- people at funerals, lining up one-by-one to explain how the person who passed on has impacted their lives.

"Jimmy had so much stuff," a young man says tearfully.  "The amount of money in his bank account was really meaningful to me."

"Bob had so many Facebook friends."  *sniff*  "That changed my life."

"Annie's clothes will really be missed.  She had the cutest shoes."

"Janie went so many places, I didn't really know her.  But oh!" a woman exclaims with a sob, "she had really great Facebook pictures.  I'll miss those Facebook pictures."

"I think what I'll miss most about Audrey...is her thigh gap."  A tissue comes out.  "She was just the perfect size!" he wails, shaking his head.

Of course that's ridiculous.  Of course people aren't going to talk about the number of Facebook friends you had, and they'd better not talk about a thigh gap (which, by the way, I'd never heard of until I came to college).  That's just wrong.  These are not the things that matter.  These are not the things that last.

So why is it that these are the sorts of things we spend our time trying to achieve?

"Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight." | Jeremiah 9:23-24

How about this instead?

"He forgave me when I didn't expect him to, undeservedly and unreservedly."  (Col. 3:13)

"She valued me above herself."  (Phil. 2:3)

"He did everything with a joyful spirit, no matter how degrading or mundane the task."  (Phil. 2:14)

"She lived in absolute freedom."  (2 Cor. 3:17)

"He introduced me to Jesus Christ."  (Mat. 28:19)

"She loved me as Christ loves." (Eph. 5:2)

"He desired nothing in this world more than Jesus Christ."  (Ps. 73:25)

"She feared God, and became fearless."  (Is. 8:12)

Here is my challenge to you.

What do you want people to say about you, at the end of your life?  Looking back, what will they remember?  What do you want them to remember?

And once you've figured out what you want that to be, go after it.  Stop at nothing.  If it is to be your legacy, make it a strong one.  If it's Facebook friends, get adding.  If it's a thigh gap, get at those squats.

If it's Jesus Christ, get on your face.

Let it be said of us that we gave to reach the dying
Let it be said of us that our hearts belonged to Jesus
Let it be said of us that we spoke the words of life
Let it be said of us that we lived to be a blessing

"What is the secret to great living?  Entire separation to Christ and devotion to Him.  Thus speaks every man and woman whose life has made more than a passing flicker in the spiritual realm.  It is the life that has no time for trifling that counts." | Amy Carmichael

*I couldn't think of anything exciting.  I am currently taking suggestions for the title of this post.  Let me know.  If I use your idea, I'll give you a virtual hug (oh yeah, get excited).

Unfinished?

Once upon a time...a woman asked an artist for a painting.

She didn't specifically ask...but she did set up a canvas in his studio.

And the artist, you see, loved to paint.  So if someone gave him the opportunity to paint, he thrilled in it.  He rejoiced in it.  And he painted.

A few weeks after he had begun painting, the woman heard about his work.  Furious, she went to see the artist.  "I didn't ask you for a painting!" she exclaimed.  "I have no wall space, nowhere to put it!  I wanted that canvas left blank, maybe for later, but certainly not now!"  She glanced at the painting, already underway, already marked by the master artist's brushstrokes, already symbolic of hours of loving, passionate work.  "I want that thing destroyed."

The artist protested.  "This will be one of my finest works," he told her.  "If you don't have room for it, I will find someone else to give it to, someone who will love it and appreciate its beauty."

She did not listen.

The artist was agonized.  "Please," he begged her, "I love this painting.  I have spent hours planning it, designing it.  It is meant to be cherished."  He trailed his finger over the just-dried paint.  It was already beautiful; how much more beautiful could it be when it was finished!

But with a shake of her head, the woman reached out, grabbed the painting, and ripped it apart.

The artist wept.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not an artist.  But I do remember a time when I was younger that I was knitting a scarf.  I was very, very proud of my progress on the scarf from the first stitch onward.  One day, in my carelessness, I let the needle slip out, and the entire scarf unraveled.  I was most distraught.

The scarf wasn't finished yet.  I could start over.  I could even do it differently if I wanted to.

But even the few rows of uneven stitches represented hours of hard, shaky-fingered, careful little-girl work.

Everyone (hopefully) would sympathize with a little girl whose unfinished scarf unraveled.

We would call someone cruel who destroyed a painting whilst it was still under the artist's brush.

We would weep with someone whose novel's first pages were thrown into the fire, though the remainder had yet to be written.

Let us, then, weep for the Master Artist, the Divine Author, whose work is so often destroyed mid-brushstroke...mid-word.

It's not a baby yet, but you wouldn't dare feed a smile-less Mona Lisa to the flames.

It's not a human yet, but you wouldn't shred the first hundred pages of War and Peace and justify it by saying it's "not a book yet."

It's not finished yet, but even if it's not, what does it matter??

What does it matter?

Do you see?  Do you understand?

I can in no way stand in judgment on any woman who has had an abortion.  I have no idea what she has been through.  No idea.  But somewhere along the way, whether by herself or someone she trusted, she had to have been lied to.

She had to have been told, "It's okay...it's not finished yet."

Oh, we are all not finished yet! praise God!  But may we ever see the love, the planning, the passion that went into our creation!  How can we justify destroying something simply because the final touch has not been added?

Simply because it's "not done" doesn't mean it isn't already beautiful.

Simply because it's "in progress" doesn't mean it's not already indescribably precious.

I have nothing to add, except that I pray our hearts may be broken, enlightened, and move to action.

May we fight to keep the Artist's canvass under His brush.