I just got off the phone with my mom. I love my mom.
I was trying to write this and couldn't and called her and she said she was just thinking about me and how beautiful God was, and how, when He comes into our lives in such extraordinary ways, it is as though our universe shifts.
So last night, I remembered that I was with Jesus, and then I was with Him. As soon as I knew this, I threw my arms around Him and held on tight, my face in His shoulder, and let all my emotions pour out in a wordless jumble.
Once the first rush of this was past, then I was able to let myself simply rest with Him. It was as though we were resting on a couch. My head was on His shoulder, my arm trailing off the edge of the couch, my fingertips against the stone floor.
This is how real it seems to be. It's so peaceful, just resting there. And He talks to me. Many times, the first thing He says is you've had an exhausting day.
And it's as if I don't even realize this until He points it out, and when He does, my shoulders slump in the relief of acknowledging it.
"I did!" I tell Him, in surprise.
He brings up, one by the one, the things that have been troubling me, or particularly on my mind. Even if there is no solution, I feel better simply from being able to talk about it with Him.
He listens with such loving sympathy, knows me better than I know myself and doesn't need words to communicate with me. All of this adds up to a wonderfully comforting experience.
Once, a week or so ago, I was so grateful to find myself with Him that I simply sunk right down onto the stone floor in relief.
Come up here, He invited, wordlessly, lovingly. He was sitting on the couch.
"Oh, sweetheart, let me be on the floor," I replied in a long sigh of relief. "Just to be on the floor here is delightful. I just want to rest right here on the floor."
And it was delightful! You will think me crazy, no doubt. But even the stone floor of that place is refreshing.
So He came and sat with me on the floor, and it was like sitting under the shade of a strong, delightful tree.
Most of the time He is loving and engaged, but sometimes He is full of sorrow. I don't always know why. On Good Friday, He was full of sorrow and of course, it was easy to know why, then.
Last night also, He was full of grief and I did not know why. I asked Him, of course, but He did not say. I am never in the official rooms of His house- I assume there must be some, whatever the spiritual reality of that is or is experienced as. I am always in the private rooms.
Even His movements were slower. This is one of the most stirring and poignant things about Him- that He feels emotion so deeply and that He is so open about it.
He doesn't hide His emotion away, He is not invulnerable, and I don't know which is better- being able to love on Him, or being allowed to comfort Him.
"I love to comfort You," I confessed to Him, once.
I love to be comforted by you, He replied, immediately.
I do sometimes think that there is a tendency to want God on the unreachable throne of His Majesty, when all along, He would much rather be sitting on the floor with us, comforting and being comforted and simply talking about our day and what is on our minds and hearts.
Sometimes, as a private joke, I ask Him, "And how was Your day? What have You been up to?"
This makes Him smile, His eyes full of humor and light. But of course, the answer to that question is, we both know, beyond my current understanding, though once, He replied, I spent it with you.
Which made my heart simply melt away.
Once last week, when I was resting with Him, He said, you've been reading about me.
And this feeling of both awe and shyness washed over me, because I had been reading the gospel of John and now I was actually with Jesus, in His arms, talking about reading about Him.
"Yes, I have been," I confessed. "I like it."
You've been seeing Me much more clearly, He pointed out.
"Yes," I admitted. "It's true. I do. I feel like I understand Your emotion so much better now, whereas before, I was missing it or not understanding it."
I remember, two years ago, when I was just beginning this journey. I read the gospel of John over and over again, on Biblegateway.com. Each time I got to the end, where He ascended, this feeling of loneliness passed over me. I couldn't shake this feeling of abandonment.
I went to Matthew and read all four, and when I got to the end, I still felt deserted. So I went back and began all over again, this despite the fact that it was sometimes physically painful to read about His last week and crucifixion, so I would be wincing my way through the end of each book.
Each time I came to where John writes, if everything He said and did were written down, all the libraries could not contain it, I felt nothing but pure exasperation.
When I complained to Jesus about this, He pointed out that I could see Him at work in my own life. At the time, I had no idea just how much He meant that.
I keep wondering if or when I'll go to reach out for Him and find the door to that place closed-perhaps in order for my faith to grow deeper. I can't make these things happen or prove that they are true; I can only yeild to Him as He comes, in the mystery of His love and presence.
I try to simply be in each moment, as they happen, and to know always, that no matter what I am seeing or experiencing, my life is hidden in Him and always will be.
