I saw it with perfect clarity right after Steve died suddenly in a car accident, the very week that we were setting our wedding date. While I was tossing around wedding ideas with my sister on the phone one clear, fall morning, unbeknownst to me, Steve had already died in a wreck. In a few hours I would get the call.
But through the violent tears of grief for the greatest love I have ever known, God kindly gave me a glimpse of eternity. I could see, not with my natural eyes, but with those unseen eyes of the heart. Those eyes are the only eyes that really matter. Satan opened the eyes of Adam and Eve to his selfish version of reality, his narrative. This is the dark sight that Jesus came to strike with blindness so that we can see the light of truth. He said he came to give sight to the blind, and to blind those who see.
One day I looked into his eyes and I knew, I just knew that God was loving me through this 6 foot, 2 inch tall man peering down at me with a tenderness that took my breath away. Over time I began to see myself as Steve saw me. He opened up my eyes to the truth that I was someone dearly loved by God for reasons that are unique to me-no one else can fill my spot in God's heart.
And then, all grew quiet inside of me. The raging storms of emotion that sent me careening out of control just stopped raging. I felt full inside where once I had been empty. I felt peace where I had known a tempest. I began to remember this love, a love I had known as a young child, a love that I had completely forgotten. (I have a very distinct memory of something akin to smelling fresh baked bread and remembering grandmother's house-only I was "smelling" love. Strange I know.)
But then that cold November day. I will never be able to articulate the inner tearing of my heart after Steve died. To have found a love that felt like home. It's so dreadfully cliché, but there is no better way to put it than that. But my grief was not just for my immense loss. It was also for the broken tender-heart of a God that loved me when I spurned him over, and over, and over, and over again. My grief at this knew no bounds. I had come to see Him as so hard, so difficult, so exacting and yet He had never left me, only loved me, chased me down, waited at the door searching the horizon for some glimpse of his wayward child. It felt like a collision with love and it cut me like a knife straight down the middle of my innermost being and then somehow mended me in the tearing. A double edged sword.
His saving love rips through the layers of pain, rejection, failure, and dysfunction like a hot laser beam intently exposing the beauty that he created us to be. It is like a violent force of nature that is unstoppable and terrifying in its power. When this love collided with my darkness, the fetters that had me bound simply snapped in two, and I was free.
During that time of grief, I saw that being saved means becoming the embodiment of the very love that broke my chains. Nothing else. It's that simple. It means peering through the dark, ugly, coarse layers of other's wounds and seeing the beauty that God envisioned when He made us in His image-just as Steve had done for me. Most of all, it means loving the unlovely, the rude, the hateful, and the ungrateful because that was all of us. Salvation is my darkness meeting His light, my failure meeting His faithfulness, my shortcomings meeting His outstretched arm.
But through the violent tears of grief for the greatest love I have ever known, God kindly gave me a glimpse of eternity. I could see, not with my natural eyes, but with those unseen eyes of the heart. Those eyes are the only eyes that really matter. Satan opened the eyes of Adam and Eve to his selfish version of reality, his narrative. This is the dark sight that Jesus came to strike with blindness so that we can see the light of truth. He said he came to give sight to the blind, and to blind those who see.
For a brief time after Steve's death, it was as if a veil was lifted and I could peer into eternity itself. Everything became crystal clear. And what I saw was this: God is
saving the world through a love that was demonstrated in the
sacrificial life of Jesus Christ and then borne by those who truly know Him. I don’t know why I was given this heart sight although it made my grief
bearable, even joyful, "unspeakable joy and full of glory," for brief moments. It also set my life on its course-to know this love and to be this love.
Somehow, the love that Steve showed me became a lighthouse blinking in the darkness of my bitter disappointment, pointing me towards home, towards God. I had grown so hard and cold in my exhile from God, and I was not easy to love. But over and over, I looked into Steve's eyes and in those blue eyes a beautiful, precious creature was reflected back, and that creature was me. It was how God saw me.One day I looked into his eyes and I knew, I just knew that God was loving me through this 6 foot, 2 inch tall man peering down at me with a tenderness that took my breath away. Over time I began to see myself as Steve saw me. He opened up my eyes to the truth that I was someone dearly loved by God for reasons that are unique to me-no one else can fill my spot in God's heart.
And then, all grew quiet inside of me. The raging storms of emotion that sent me careening out of control just stopped raging. I felt full inside where once I had been empty. I felt peace where I had known a tempest. I began to remember this love, a love I had known as a young child, a love that I had completely forgotten. (I have a very distinct memory of something akin to smelling fresh baked bread and remembering grandmother's house-only I was "smelling" love. Strange I know.)
But then that cold November day. I will never be able to articulate the inner tearing of my heart after Steve died. To have found a love that felt like home. It's so dreadfully cliché, but there is no better way to put it than that. But my grief was not just for my immense loss. It was also for the broken tender-heart of a God that loved me when I spurned him over, and over, and over, and over again. My grief at this knew no bounds. I had come to see Him as so hard, so difficult, so exacting and yet He had never left me, only loved me, chased me down, waited at the door searching the horizon for some glimpse of his wayward child. It felt like a collision with love and it cut me like a knife straight down the middle of my innermost being and then somehow mended me in the tearing. A double edged sword.
His saving love rips through the layers of pain, rejection, failure, and dysfunction like a hot laser beam intently exposing the beauty that he created us to be. It is like a violent force of nature that is unstoppable and terrifying in its power. When this love collided with my darkness, the fetters that had me bound simply snapped in two, and I was free.
During that time of grief, I saw that being saved means becoming the embodiment of the very love that broke my chains. Nothing else. It's that simple. It means peering through the dark, ugly, coarse layers of other's wounds and seeing the beauty that God envisioned when He made us in His image-just as Steve had done for me. Most of all, it means loving the unlovely, the rude, the hateful, and the ungrateful because that was all of us. Salvation is my darkness meeting His light, my failure meeting His faithfulness, my shortcomings meeting His outstretched arm.
I have to admit, that over the course of time I have lost sight of this love. I have lost sight of the meaning of life, and the meaning of what it means to be a Christian. But tonight I am remembering it, and committing to clear away the debris and to dust off the corrosion that has collected over my heart and blinded my eyes. I am seeking to know it yet again. I want to remember.
Because it is this love, and this love alone, that is saving the
world.
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