Can I Tell You A Secret? (It's about my favorite thing)

Sometimes I don't know what to write here. I feel like my words are too - twenty-something, not aged liked really good Chateaux de Neuf 1982, not witty like the endless Calvin & Hobbes comic books piled high in our house, not wise like the simple sentences my mother says to me in the quiet of Sunday morning rides to church, where I am just, well, floored by how true it is, how good it is. 


And then there is of course that other nagging problem that so much of this season of harvesting, of springtime bursting in my heart like Tendercrop Farm in May when the rows of pots of new flowers are eagerly awaiting replanting in the rich soil of our garden... so much of that doesn't really come to me in words. 

It's just this quiet presence. Oh, hello, God. I welcome Him into the grumpiness of a Monday morning. You're here again, aren't you. I get out of my bed and twist my face muscles in a small smile and yawn loudly. Well, okay then. I pull sweaters from my closet. It's You and me today, God. I rummage through drawers for a pair of socks. I love you. Those words - I can't tell if it's Him or me saying them, or maybe both of us and He's pulling me in again and again into the dwelling place. 


Today in church I huddled in my long coat and listened to our priest preach on Ephesians 3. I was wearing my early morning scowl and I thought, Hoo boy. Here we go for thirty minutes. And we did (or maybe it was 22 minutes...). But let me tell you the treasure that God whispered right straight into me. 


For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3.14-21)

Wow. 

It isn't about words at all, is it? I ask suddenly timid and trembling.

Hilary. 

It's about the Love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

It's not about your words. It's about Mine. 

Oh. I forgot. I kneel close to the pew in front of me and cradle my head in my hands.

I'll keep telling you, He says. I'm going to teach you how to remember. I want to dwell in you. 

There are the words I'm waiting for, and they don't come from me at all. My own words taste a little like sawdust compared to the ones He keeps speaking. 

So that secret? Sometimes I wonder what this whole blogging escapade is for, what it's about, why I do it. Sometimes I doubt that there is a purpose other than emptying my tired head. Sometimes I wish I had better words.

But oh, how sweet and deep and real and alive are the words that He speaks and breathes into us, words of His power and glory and faithfulness and love. And you know what? It's those words that give us life. 

(photo credit: Mandie Sodoma)

Pray with me:

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we
do is worth nothing; Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our
hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace
and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted
dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son
Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Love,

Hilary