He Loves Me. He Loves Me.

The mountains and hills may crumble, but my love for you will never end, so says the Lord who loves you. Isaiah 54:10 (TEV)

How does He do it? How does He love us anyway? For some of us that anyway, that in-spite-of, can be unimaginable when viewed along side of our sin.

If I turned in a paper as my own but "borrowed" someone else's work from the Internet, I can see how God might be disappointed in me but still manage to care for me in-spite-of myself. If I got so upset with my child that I put a hot iron against his face where is His affection? Where is redemption?

Remember, we are the ones whose life is a vapor, whose days are grass. Not so with God. He is eternal and substantial and He loves from the same stuff He is made of so we might as well just give up trying to understand it and accept it. The hills may come to dust. The unthinkable in life may happen. His love is still standing when the dust clears.

If His love is unshakable, immovable; if it won't blush, won't run- then maybe we can trust it. Maybe this Lenten season of self examination we can unclothe our secret selves and stand naked in His presence and survive.

Love is the covering that lets grace do its work.

What needs to be stripped away, washed away, finished? What needs to be laid down, set aside, buried in an unmarked grave? What thoughts need to be captured?

The One whose love is made out of the same stuff as Eternity is looking right at you and He isn't walking away. There is no "He loves me not" spoken over any daisy in Heaven.-kl

"Forgive me my sins, O Lord; forgive me the sins of my youth and the sins of my age, the sins of my soul and the sins of my body, my secret and my whispering sins, the sins I have done to please myself and the sins I have done to please others. Forgive those sins which I know, and the sins which I know not; forgive them, O Lord, forgive them all because of your great goodness and the sacrifice of Christ."  Beliefnet

“Sometimes, O God, my thirst for you is pushed aside, ignored, or simply quenched by something other—something reasonable, something more popular—than you. But you never go away, never stop, never leave the depths of me. Like an underground spring, you are fresh and free, breaking through. Help me prepare a place for you in the caverns of my soul. Amen.”

- Pamela Hawkins, The Awkward Season: Prayers for Lent