Like Him

I went to see my niece this past week. Just for a little while, and I brought along a pink chair for her. Giving is becoming one of my favorite things. I think it is a quality that became more prevalent + apparent in me when I became an aunt. I love it.

We had some hard discussions and lively debates while I visited my family and friends and held that little baby I adore. I was teary-eyed for an entire night, and I promise you, you would have been afraid of the way I sobbed and prayed in the car on the drive back. I was a mess. I even had to stop and buy red gladiolus because I knew I wouldn't make it home so heartbroken without flowers.
I never really loved people. I was never really compassionate.
But these days God has been ever so subtly + tenderly showing me that I am becoming more so. I am learning to love people. It was so evident to me as I wept over the depravity of the human mind and how inconsequential we make such heart-wrenching things to be.
We are such wretched creatures.

Can I confess to you now? Please let me.

My greatest fear at the moment, is that someone—anyone—I know will die without Jesus. And they will do it on purpose. They will slap His hand away.

I am terrified of that.
Because this is the sweetest + most gorgeous thing that ever happened to me. This is bliss. This is a silver lining. This is joy. This is true redemption. This is forgiveness.
Knowing Jesus is heaven on earth, and quite literally.
I cannot imagine how the brief things of this life can compare to the eternal promises that my carpenter has made to me. And I don't understand. I really don't. I tried so very hard as I prayed for hours about it yesterday. But the truth of the matter is, I will never 'get it.' I will never see it any other way. Because I've tasted Him + His promises. I've seen His work and His blessings. I've felt His presence. And nothing even comes close.
Everything else is dirt.

I just want to give everyone what I have. I whispered that in a choked voice as I drove yesterday. And I really do. I really do want to give people what I have. What I have is beautiful. What I have is eternity in a handful. What I have is light and light and light. What I have is never-ending + ever-present.
What I have is a Savior.
That is perhaps the most beautiful thing about Christianity. You are saved. Rescued. Cherished. Loved. Freed. Liberated. You had a gun to your head, pressed cold and hard and with steady hands, deserving of it too, and then He was there. He stepped forward and knelt down in front of you and placed the barrel against his own temple and then he pulled the trigger. He saved you. He spared you. He forgave you.

He already took the bullet for you.

The greatest giver is the Christ. Let me be more like Him.

I am working on some small things, letters actually, and I hope to share them with you soon. But it is because of how God is delicately and persistently capturing my heart daily that I feel the need to share with you some of my thoughts before I can put them in the form I really wish them to be in.  In other words, I'm impatient, so please be longsuffering if my posts these days are erratic + incoherent. My mind is a mess. And you will have something that flows and is beautiful and substantial soon. Cross my heart.