A god who loves me

My life has been full of service lately, keeping me busy. More church music than I can shake a stick at. Add to that I've felt out of kilter all week since I did a bit of a complicated face plant onto my bathtub early one morning. I managed to just hit the bridge of my nose; how, I don't know. But I knocked my neck out of alignment and rattled my brain enough to not exactly be my normal self for a few days.

So really, really busy, and not feeling 100%.

This after coming off some other intense moments with my Carmelite retreat, the funeral of a community member, and other things that constitute my normal self in all her grand intensity.

Part of me being normal is that I have a constant undercurrent of thought and awareness going on, seemingly unbidden. This week I noticed many times I simply was unable to do that or "live there." That undercurrent also feeds my prayer life, even though now I realize it is certainly the function of my active soul. (It is strange but good to be able to dissect one's interior life this way. Bumps on the head do a great service.) What I've learned this week is that I have to have a prayer life that is not dependent on my ability to think straight or feel good. I have to have that space where I just put myself before God, knowing He is within me, and just be there. Maybe it isn't that this is new to me, but it has been as if I could hardly do anything else.

In the midst of that, this morning, during down time at a music practice I happened to pick up a children's book (I was in the church library) about a martyr of the early church. She was a Greek girl of the first century, born to a non-believing family. My daughter and I have been reading The Roman Mysteries, so we've gotten pretty familiar with the time period and what worship of the Greek and Roman gods felt like. The book had her praying like this: "Oh mysterious God, if there is a god who loves me, tell me. Show me who you are."

Something about this struck me right between the eyes. A god who loves me. Everything is in those words. The Greek and Roman gods were to be respected, honored, sacrificed to, shown piety, but they did not love people. They were forces, or powers, and they could grant favors or inflict punishment, but they did not form relationships. They did not love. Philosophers embraced ideas and ideals and lived by virtues. But they did not speak of being loved by a God who personally loves.

That is uniquely Christian.

And that struck me, hard. If God loves, if the One God loves me, and that love reaches me, then the only reasonable response to this love is to give my all and everything in return, to love Him in return. Love compels love in return; it is the strongest force in the universe.

A god who loves me.

A mighty rushing wind, an enormous fire, an all-consuming response. That's the only way the reality of a god who loves me can be met.

It would be so easy if I could just turn into a ball of flame. Sometimes the way that fire has to ignite is through virtues like patience, long-suffering, kindness, perseverance, faithfulness, constancy, watching, and waiting. Love actually forms these in the soul. Balls of flame sometimes do intricate little hidden works.

But the God who loves me can create in me anything and everything He desires. That's all I desire.

Because it is true. He is a God who loves me.