Beyond words

This post is actually one that I started last month but just couldn't finish.  I had so many overwhelming thoughts on the subject that I could not process them all.  I just had to let them marinate awhile.  These thoughts have not left me but intensified in the last few weeks.  The question I keep asking - What did I do to deserve this?

However the context of that question is far different from the context in which most people ask it.  This time, there is a positive spin.  Most people ask this question when things are bad but in my situation, things are incredibly good - better than I could have asked, better than I even hoped for.

Why would God bless me this much and why now? 

My answer came today in Ann Voskamp's blog.  Her realization of God's grace hit a target area in my heart.  " Sometimes the proof that God exists is that lightning doesn’t strike but quiet grace rains straight down."  I've always understood that God loves me but sometimes I think He chooses to show us in ways that we least expect.    In Ann's blog she describes a struggle that her friend was facing in accepting God's grace.  She questioned - "why does God strangely bless us when we’re half-estranged from him?" I am not estranged from God - quite the opposite; but I'm also not as close as I thought I should be in order to experience His love like I have over the past few weeks.

For the last year, I've felt that God was asking me to fall in love with Him before He would show me the type of love I was seeking with another.  Falling in love with God is one of those things that is much easier said than done.  Maybe it's that I confused the emotional aspect of love with the action form of love yet again.  This has been a struggle for me all my life: that Prince Charming theology that so many little girls buy into.Who doesn't want happily ever after?  And maybe I didn't truly feel the emotion that I was looking for when I was loving God.  Let's face it - love is not always easy.  It is a choice.  And maybe that's exactly what I did right this time.  I chose it.  I chose to love God - even when I didn't feel it.  I sought Him and I listened when He spoke and I looked for all the ways He loves me and found them - even when my heart was broken, even when it ached beyond what I thought I could bear.

So what did I do to deserve the happiness I feel now?  Absolutely nothing.  Nothing that I can do is worthy of the way God is blessing me at this time in my life - not even the fact that I sought Him when it was incredibly difficult - when it would have been easier to hate Him.  But this is exactly why His blessings are true gifts.  They are not deserved - not ever.  But they are one way God proves to us that He is present and that He hears our cries.

Ann also acknowledges - "Sometimes it’s incomprehensible grace that shakes you awake."  If I've ever been awake and aware of God's presence in my life, it's now.  The only reason I can say that is because of His grace and His hand in what's happening in my heart.

Lastly I want to share song lyrics that Ann's son shared with her during his illness with pneumonia - "If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking." What an incredible kid to think of a song like that at a time when he was suffering!

But how incredibly true that is - I'm falling, and sinking very fast, very deep in a sea of grace.  Words can't express my gratitude and perhaps that's why I couldn't even express this in my blog.  Words elude me when emotion is extreme but that's not a bad thing.   I may not be writing as often but that's only because I'm taking in grace - swimming in it - soaking it in - basking in His love while the emotion is alive and well so that I never forget and never repeat old patterns or mistakes.  I like to give credit where credit is due and that goes to my Heavenly Father who loves me and loves you.  All I can hope is that someone who may be seeing dark days can look at me and know that there is hope and that God wants to bless them too and hold on to that hope even when life seems empty.  In our weakest days we can hold on to this:

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect (Stephen Curtis Chapman)

And always remember: 
God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obligation to you, but as an affirmation of you. (Ann Voskamp)