Wonder!

I used to enjoy shocking my third graders with, "Jesus has tattoos." The widened eyes and accompanying gasps were priceless. After all, I was talking to a class in a conservative, traditional Christian school. Then I'd segue into Isaiah 49:16, where God tells us "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." I'd go on to explain the engravings weren't really tattoos per se, but rather the eternal scars of love received on the cross for you and for me. Sure enjoyed the shock factor on "them kids," though!

God's love is amazing. It's the most priceless thing in God's economy, the single avenue through which faith works (Galatians 5:6). And it is through comprehending that love that the knowledge and fullness of God opens up to us (Ephesians 3:19). So . . . I guess that means that one of the greatest quests we can embark on in this life is to search for that love in all its glorious depths.

I'm "lucky" in many ways, not the least of which is that I had a grandmother who knew how to bask in the love of God. How she loved, loved, loved, to worship Him on her knees, hands raised in abject worshipful submission! So I have a pretty good mental picture of what someone looks like when they "get" that love. As lucky as I am, though, I have been a slow learner. A. Very. Slow. Learner. For years I have prayed the prayer offered up by Paul for believers in Ephesians 3, the one where Paul says he's praying for his Christian friends to know God's love so they can understand "all the fullness of God." Unfortunately, my understanding has lagged behind. But I just might have had a smidgeon of a breakthrough . . .

That's one of the wonderful things about God: He doesn't give up on us. He keeps on gently nudging us along until finally, finally, we get what He's been prodding us toward! Little wonder David said, "Thy gentleness hath made me great" (Psalm 18:35).

There have been times in my life when the feather-light brush of God's love has made itself magnificently palpable. There was the time in Cuernavaca in my early twenties when my body suddenly began to experience extreme pain and numbness on the entire left side. Whatever it was made it hard to lift my feet to climb the stone steps from Auntie's hillside apartment to the patio where the car was parked. I had to resort to the arduous process of praying at each step before attempting to lift my legs. Not knowing what it was was kind of scary, but I clung to Job 13:15, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." I can't understate the comfort that scripture undergirded me with.

Unfortunately, the physical uncomfortableness grew to such an extent that I couldn't type (my main job) with any ease whatsoever, as pain coursed from my left digits all the way up my arm and numbed my brain. At my wits end, I called out to God. I had no insurance, no money for a doctor; if I shared my debilities with Auntie I knew she would feel obligated to find help for me. As all her money was ministry money, I knew that if she used that money for me I would feel a load of guilt, like I was wasting God's money.

Please, God, I pleaded as I sat paralyzed in front of my typewriter. Heal me or tell me what to do. Then the strangest thing happened. Immediately I felt as if two big hands were cupping themselves around me and I experienced the most wonderful, complete peace I have ever felt in my life. That sensation, that I was a little chick in God's hands, lasted all day.

That night we went to a rural house meeting where we prayed for a sick lady. I was biding my time for the right moment in which to ask for prayer for myself. But as we prayed for the lady, something wonderful happened to my body. All the pain and discomfort simply left. Just like that, in the snap of a finger, my health was restored. I have never, ever, EVER in the decades since felt that same wondrous sensation of being cupped in God's hands. I have even tried to fabricate it, conjure it up, to see if maybe it was a weird trick my mind played on me, all to no avail. It had to have been a God thing, a special dispensation of His grace and love to comfort me, a tangible harbinger of the healing He had in store for me.

The same thing happened to my father-in-law, Brother Bill Muse. Seven years prior to his going home to Heaven, my first husband, Steve, suffered second and third degree burns on 35 % of his body in a terrible accident. We ended up at the burn center in Galveston, Texas. That is where my in-laws drove to see their son and help me with hotels and other expenses. This being one of their beloved sons, it stands to reason that they should have been greatly distraught during their trip there, but when they arrived, Brother Muse shared an amazing experience they had during that long drive from Oklahoma to South Texas. The entire way, God's love was so palpable that it had felt like the presence of God filled the car. And the thing about God's presence is that it makes you so, so certain that everything is going to be all right. And it was. A lot of pain and tribulation later, Steve was supernaturally healed by the hand of God and all was indeed well. That presence of God, that palpable sense of His love, had foreshadowed it.

But those were once in a lifetime flirtations with the depth of God's love. I knew that when Paul talked about knowing God's love he had more in mind. So I kept praying, seeking.

Fast forward a few years, and there I was, sitting in a church service, not exactly looking forward to hearing the lady who was about to speak about a coming church activity. She was a sweet lady, but my, did she love to talk! Even Dennis, in private (husbands and wives have the privilege of venting with each other about things they would NEVER, EVER tell anyone else!), had made reference to her love of talking. No matter which way you cut it, it was a little on the overboard side. But as she stood up there on the platform in all her talkative glory, God touched me in a special way and let me see how He saw her.

You know how new parents love to see their toddler begin to walk? They cheer his or her every step, delighting in every accomplishment, however small it might be. It doesn't matter if the child ends up on his rear more than he takes steps forward, for love of their child the parents delight in seeing every single attempt. God is our Father. And just as an earthly parent delights in their child's every step, imperfect though it might be, our Father delights in us, warts and all.

As I listened to the lady speak, my entire being awash with the wonder of how God viewed her (He wasn't annoyed by her love of hearing herself speak at all!), my eyes swept over the congregation, and that "seeing them as God sees them" experience encompassed each and every one of them.

There to my right sat a brother who favored his son over his daughter--but God loved him. There to my left sat a lady who came to church only sporadically--but God loved her. There in the far back sat a young man who had worshipped God enthusiastically in his youth, but now, married, with children, rarely dragged his feet to the house of worship--but God loved him. That's not to say that God approved of their spiritual "warts"--it's to say that God loved them despite the warts. In Mark 10:21 Jesus looks at the rich young ruler and despite knowing that he would not do as Jesus said, the scripture says, "Then Jesus beholding him loved him . . ." Ah, the wonder of His love!

That is why he has been patiently nudging me forward to step through that door labeled Basking in His Love. Stepping through that threshold reveals to us his modus operandi, the way He lovingly deals with each of His children. And seeing how He loves in turn opens the door to knowing the depths of His love. He loves you. He loves me. He loves us all, fully, completely, despite our imperfections. We don't deserve such love, yet He offers it freely to us.

And this, Dear Friends, is how my undeserving toe stepped through the threshold, not of the door of a singular experience of God's love, but of the door of a daily knowing of God's unfailing love. I know I haven't arrived at a total knowledge, but this dipping-my-toe-in-it thing feels mighty fine!

If you have yet to experience a strong, life-changing awareness of His love, ask Him. He is no respecter of persons, what He is doing for me He yearns to do for you (Acts 10:34). Don't wait! Step through that wonder-filled door of His love!

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." Ephesians 3:14-19

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32