“Behold, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
I John 3:1
There was never a
time in my life when I was anti God or religion. Since I can remember I was always drawn to
the beauty of them both. I liked the
stories, the singing, the stained glass windows, and the gathering together of
the people for picnics and pot luck suppers.
But all of that was just part of my life. My other parts were sports, camp, school, and
hanging out with my friends. I
especially loved being outside in nature, especially at the beach and in the
woods. My life was made up of parts but
never really came together. Parts of my
life were wonderful. Parts of my life
were horrible. I would try to live in
the wonderful but was often overwhelmed by the horrible.
There was a time
during my college years that I yielded more to the horrible part, feeding it
more than the others. Everything became
filtered through the darkness I felt within myself. I stopped the wonder and lived in the
darkness. I was depressed, I drank too
much, and I didn’t let myself see any of the good stuff in life because inside
I knew I didn’t deserve it. I gave up on
me and wanted to die and leave this world and everything in it.
My outer
circumstances weren’t much better than my inward ones. The late 60’s and early 70’s were a
tumultuous time in this country. The war
in Viet Nam
That was who I was
when Jesus walked along the shore of my life, stopped and sat next to me, put
his arms around me, told me he loved me, and asked me to follow him. In a moment of time, on Psalm Sunday April
15, 1973 I was changed from within into the real me. Over the past forty plus years that inward
change has been manifesting itself in my outward life. It takes patience and time for good
sustainable growth to come about.
Perfection will never come in this life of flesh; but the thought of it
continues to make me aim high in all that I think and do.
I am drawn to
Jesus because he loved me at my worst.
That kind of love makes me want to be the best that I can be, not out of
duty to a commandment but out of devotion to a person. I fail and he forgives me and helps me learn
from my mistakes. I succeed and he
forgives me of my pride and helps me know that it’s not about failing or
succeeding; it’s about being the me that
he created in his likeness. It’s
about love, true love that needs no response, simply recognition. “Behold, what manner of love…”
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