I had the oddest, bestest experience today.

I woke up before six, which I hadn't done in a while - not without studying as the primary goal - and went for a ramble outside with my Bible. There wasn't anything extraordinary about that time; it was lovely and cool and the sunrise was just beginning to stain the eastern sky, but beyond that it was just my usual devotional.

Shortly thereafter, I went off to my First Aid (re-)certification classes. Nothing particularly eventful there. On the way home, I wasn't feeling well and was pretty sure I was coming down with something. I was slightly irritated and more than a little frustrated - but somehow (I don't know; I was more inclined to mope than to think lofty, spiritual thoughts) my mind kept coming back to thoughts about conversations I've had recently with a couple people about Godly fellowship and relationships. "Love is like dying," one of my friends has told me. For Christ, love was dying. Dying to his own desire to be glorified on earth, dying to adopt the will of the Father - this was His love for the Father; His love for us.

His love for us? His love for me! And then, suddenly, it seemed clear as the sun above me: God loves me.

I don't know why it suddenly became so real. I didn't hear a voice saying "I love you," or see the words written in the clouds. Money didn't rain down from the clouds like manna to answer my every need, though I've no doubt that God could and would do that if it would answer His good purposes. I didn't suddenly see a way through to the end of my life. And yet I knew - I knew, not just His love for me, but His love for all His children - all the hurting hearts I've ever lifted up in my prayers and all the million more I've never known and never prayed for.

Once that realization struck, God sent me a love song. A cliche way to describe it, but I don't think these things are outside His timing - and at that moment, when I was clutching the steering wheel and trying to focus on the road and at the same time deal with this assault. Tenth Avenue North's Beloved started on the CD I was shuffling in the background. It's a love song from Christ to His Body - not just some nebulous, sappy sonnet from any guy to any girl, but specifically that. A love song from Christ to His Beloved.

You’re my beloved;Beloved, I’m yours. 
Death shall not part us, 
It’s you I died for.
For better or worse 
Forever we’ll be - 
Our Love it unites us 
It binds you to me. 
It’s a mystery...  

Something happened as I pulled into the driveway, triggered perhaps by the song and yet much deeper than a song, where the feeling is lost as soon as the chords die. How can I describe it? I do not know, except to say it shook me so swiftly and effectively that only seconds after I turned the car off, I had to put my head on the wheel and sob. I have never cried so hard over something I could not describe or explain with preceding events. And then--ten seconds later--it was gone. I wiped my eyes and went into the house.

Earlier this morning, I had read in Isaiah 41:

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Or, as the above song puts it: You will drink of my lips, and you’ll taste new life.

2 Missages

1. Muni Beduhin on June 5, 2009 at 1:20 AM

   > I had to put my head on the wheel
   > and sob. I have never cried so hard
   > over something I could not describe...
   > And then--ten seconds later--it was
   > gone.
   Yes. This is the way joy hits you: you cry, then you stop, and you want to laugh and sing.

    
2. F.B. on June 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM

   'O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, I will lay your stones in antimony and set your foundations in sapphire.'
   
   Isaiah 54 this morning.