Just because

You are beautiful and I can do it.

In Love

Apologies however for my own clumsiness in presenting this fantasticity of grace (if you're new to my rambling, I allow myself to invent words...). If you found my last rather melodramatic, that was just me trying in my special clumsy fashion to get my point across. I meant it. The point is this - God loves. Yes, it is covenant love; yes, He asks us to respond. But none of that changes the fact this way or that - God loves. Not even the fact that God judges can change the fact that God loves.

And I am still being blown away by the fantasticity of grace... Sometimes it would seem as if God says to me: Do you love me? Then act like it.

I am rubbish at being in love, I suspect. And I use 'in love' warily. I must also be rubbish at loving. I act sometimes like a complete ass - a kiss at the door, one in the evening and no remembrance of love inbetween. Does God get used to hurt? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Whatever the answer, I'm willing to bet it still hurts.

So we were standing together in my little church belting out our love for the Lord. I have meant it, I do. But this Sunday, I just stood there half-grateful I knew enough to ask if I could be allowed to not lead tonight and just sit back in the meeting. And I was more than half-miserable knowing that I couldn't say I loved Him with all my heart and mind, knowing that I would love to be able to promise it with all the others who were smiling so gorgeously. But hating myself because at some level I was holding back (and I knew it) because I was afraid of hurting Him - again.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me - I don't have to go seeking after those highly desirable things... They follow me - can I whoop with joy now? Because as I stood there longing to be able to allow myself to sing that line, God spoke. And changed my life - again.

No Apologies

It's fantastic how God says in Jeremiah 3 to the backslider - 'Return and I will cure you of backsliding'!

It's not a mewling lover mourning loudly and Orsino-like about the love that has left him. No, it's not even an enraged husband staking all his glory and dignity on the wife who is unfaithful. It's not like a boss who suddenly clutches the last straw within his reach to save face - 'You can't quit! I fire you.' God is not mocked. And God is not dependent on anyone or anything. Neither is his love. It's not a you-love-me-I'll-love-you-back deal. It's not trashy or mushy or, in any way, weak. This is the kind of love that is stronger than death. I always used to wonder at the comparison - I mean why would you call death strong anyway, given the resurrection and the fact that we believe we're heading somewhere? But it's unavoidable, isn't it? This human death that is certain. The one thing that is surer is this kind of love. That, I guess, is why grace is amazing.

So my mind has just been blown away by that verse. And I'm glad of it. It's a love that God describes in so much passionate detail in the preceding verses. It sounds like he's crying, but he's not complaining. Sorrow but not shame. Remonstrance but not revulsion. Nothing can change it, he says. The only thing we can do is accept it - well, also reject it, but never change it. It makes me feel horribly helpless sometimes, and horribly ungrateful. And then I realise that he's actually doing it for himself as much as for me!! He just enjoys loving us and revels in extending mercy. He died just so he could have us and be with us. There is a heart full of sorrow and hurt, but the generosity remains. The vastness of a heart that is him - "though we are faithless, yet he remains faithful". Grace gives no apologies.

The Breaker-Down

Sometimes tongues are like a glass of cold water after your morning jog! When you're stuck because you can't say what went wrong and what came right, and you don't know where you want to be or go but you know you must leave this place you are in... Or when you're simply floored by being in love and wonder and peace...

Habit is a hard thing to break, especially the habit of thought for me... But God goes before you to break down and destroy what stands in His way.

I have just rediscovered Isaiah 45: 1-3 and I love it.

1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:

2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains [a] ;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.

3 I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

I've got you covered

I am here in this place, with tears and smiles beyond my juggling skills. I want somewhere I can go and unburden myself - and you are here. Ready to take it on. I cannot be oblivious to that. Whenever I need you, you are here. Even when I don't see that I need you, you see it. You know me better than I know myself. This love shapes my world. It changes it. Redefines my need for love - you're not just everything I need, my need becomes you, more and more every day.

Because of you, I can smile. Actually because of you, I can cry too because I know you will see. Because of you, because of you. Lux lucis in obscurum.

And when I fall, I'm in your arms and it's the best place of all. And when I am nervous and jittery about whether the track will bear up under me, I can hear you whisper 'It's all right, I've got you covered.' The best thing I have heard all week - 'I've got you covered.' Thank you because when you walk beside me I know I can count on that familiar pressure under my arm when I stumble. Thank you because this is a forever kind of love.

Lux Lucis in Obscurum

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. - F Scott Fitzgerald.

Have you ever been there? When every moment you think morning might come faster, that this waiting might be over - and every time you think it you are reminded of the waiting in an inexorably ticking but never moving time-warp.

And you are desperate to leave, to forget. And you claw your way through a brick wall, soot covering the sides, your arms aching and heedless of the thin, sticky tracks of blood down them. Your nails are split and your hair is ragged. Scratch marks on your face and a dryness in your throat and eyes. No tears left. Check - none at all. Just a fear that you know you're ignoring. Hurriedly you put away the demented knowledge.

This night will end.

There is a space between the fear of hope and the fear of hopelessness. If you give up now, you will begin to think about it. And it lies there like an undisposed-of corpse reminding you of a guilt not undertaken. Is this the end of sanity?

You are desperate to forget, and in your desperation you cannot think of anything else.

Until someone... unthinkingly, insensitively, abrasively reminds you, confronts it, smiles at it cluelessly. Idiotically. What do they have on this relentless darkness? They will never know it.

But the tears fall. And in the dark, your watch says it is ten past three.

This is the day

Jesus, I am so thankful for you, and I love you so much. Because you make me smile whenever. Because I have you.