It’s amazing how the sun’s rays can feel as satisfying as a long, wet kiss; it’s warmth as comforting as a familiar embrace. The day is unfolding like a delicately wrapped gift; every hour pulls back a corner of tissue from this hidden gem.
I’m endeavoring to look as elegant as I feel by perching a poppy-red, wide-brimmed hat on my head. Go figure. My head is too big. I wonder if I inherited the immense Carroll head as God’s idea of an obvious metaphor. Today I don’t even mind if he is mocking me. I feel his love everywhere. I see it in my best-friend’s belly bobbing in the water, ripe with my unborn niece. I see it in my mom’s dark skin, gleaming in the hot afternoon sun. I see it dancing in the hem of my aunt’s wrap as she sits elegant and demure in the shade of the umbrella.
This week away in Arizona feels like a divine appointment. Beautiful women, food, weather, music. But then, so did my long weekend in Calgary/Edmonton a few weeks ago. I feel like the Holy Spirit has revealed something to me through my wise friend Laura, and now I am walking through all of life with a new sense of purpose. With new eyes to see. Today I see his love in the green glint of the pool water, in the sharp edges of the cacti lining the scenery, in the dry colors of the desert.
Am I thinking about Shane? Of course I am thinking about Shane. I always think about Shane. I love that guy! I want to memorize the exact contours and details of his face and then burn them onto the backs of my retinas so that in these times, so far away from him, I need only close my eyes to see him.
Am I thinking about marrying him and what our own particular version of Happily-Ever-After-Save-Inevitable-Glitches will look like? Of course I’m thinking about it. But not because it’s Valentine’s! Please Lord strike me dead with a lightening bolt if my idea of love and romance becomes relegated to foil wrapped chocolates and red roses. No. I’m dreaming about this because I’m dreaming about love today. And all kinds of love.
And all kinds of love eventually point me back to their source. God. Who binds us in love to one another to help with the process of living life and surviving life. I don’t even know where to start except to say that God has rocked my understanding of him again. Just as I was getting confident I knew something of his nature, WHAM! Back to the beginning. Starting over. Picking up the pieces of my broken image, trying to figure out which fragments still fit.
Is he a God of love and grace? Heck yes he is. But is he a God of judgment and holiness? Hmmmm, unfortunately I think he might be. It’s been liberating to discover that God is actually pretty confident and wise so I don’t necessarily need to approve of all of his characteristics for them to be good and true. He is who he is. Like it, or, in some terribly misguided cases, leave it. The scary side of him, somehow, does not negate the good.
I think it’s interesting that in my new revelation of God and his character (brought on by some fiery sermons on Revelations!) I have also been given new eyes for Song of Songs and this picture of God as passionate lover.
Weird! How does this fit? The God of judgment and the God of passion. I don’t get it! But I know one thing, I suddenly feel more interested in a holy life. It’s been a weird shift from my trucker persona (ie. drinking, swearing, not giving a #$%^) to this feeling of wanting to be found blameless. Not to seem or appear differently, but to honor my Holy God.
In a very naïve comparison, it’s a similar motivation when I dress up for a date. Or when I make a beautiful supper. Or when I use my manners with someone’s Grandma. There is something about carefully considering the way I behave that can honor the people around me. Suddenly I’m less interested in testing what I can get away with (everything! God paid for it all!) and much more interested in how his power and love have transformed me into his righteousness. How because of his love, I have been made holy and blameless in his sight. Wow. Some love goggles! I am the righteousness of God?
No wonder my head won’t fit in this elegant hat.
