As consciousness gradually wound its way around the
impressions, any knowledge was flimsy, fleeting. Time and people and surroundings were like
slides on a projector screen that didn’t remain long enough for me to identify
the faces or places. Meanwhile pain was
constant and confusing – I was weeks away from a context for all of this
fragmentation.
I had desires: I
wanted my shoes, so I could leave. I
wanted to be helped to an upright position, so I could go use the
bathroom. I wanted my kids,
desperately. These were frustrating urges
because my ability to communicate seemed so limited. Somehow, the obstacle was making people
understand – not my brokenness.
Oddly, through the haze of pain and drugs and trauma, frustration,
fretting and desperation, there was no fear.
Underneath, around and through everything was the solid confidence that
I am loved.
I am loved.
I am loved.
…with a love beyond my humanity and mortality – a love of my
soul, my essence, my me-ness. I am loved
by the One who carefully made me, and called me by name, and walks through the
fire and the water with me, and promises to be with me always, even to the end
of the age.
Everything shifted perspective for me in the ICU in Bethlehem. I had been so focused on so many wrong things
about holiness and obedience in my attempt to know God, that I missed the most
pervasive scriptural truth. God loves
me. That gloriously shining knowledge
eclipses all the rule keeping that leaves me entangled in my sin and my
self.
Within the cacophony of life weighted by performance and unachievable
standards of holiness, I was silenced with the completeness of my redemption.
And as physical healing came, that undergirding certainty
blessedly did not leave. It colors the
way I process everything. But what harm
have I done with my deformed perspective through 25 years of parenting? That question gnaws at me. I should have been a different wife, mother,
sister, friend. “Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and
knows God. The one who does not love
does not know God, for God is love.” I
memorized those words and taught them to my children; but I didn’t understand them
and I didn’t live them. I didn’t love my
family – not in the gracious way I am loved.
My love and acceptance was always conditional and formulaic. What warped view did I teach them of God?
Standing here,
looking back, I am tempted to fear the effect of my blindness on those I should
have loved better. But I am aware again
of the Everlasting Arms that have been enveloping me and I relinquish my presumption
and pride. Because I am short; I can’t
stand tall enough to block God.
