...abundance...

So...this weekend, I got to see one of my very best friends as she walked down the aisle.  She truly was radiance in motion, and everything was so perfect, from all the little wedding details like home-made chocolate covered pretzels ;) to an evening spent laughing with all my other best friends (and good food at Cracker Barrel doesn't hurt ;).

It's funny how things like weddings always manage to make you think.  There's just something about all the intensity of the moment, all the wonder of it, and all the chaos (because weddings TRULY are their own type of chaos...haha, or at least mine was!) that suddenly sets the mind to thinking about life and love, and everything in between.

As I was standing at the beginning of the aisle, watching with joy as the beauty of the night began to reach down before us all, the song playing turned to "How Deep the Father's Love for Us..."  I sound like a Hallmark card, but in that moment, I truly was overwhelmed with the love of my Father.  Honestly, do we ever think about His love enough:  How deep the Father's love for us...How vast beyond all measure...that He would give His only Son, to make a wretch (that's you...that's ME) His treasure.  I mean, His love is so good, so perfect, so senseless...WHY would He ever love us...let alone, love us so deeply?  Why does He grant us such blessings:  knowing that the very God of this Universe has loved me...has given Himself for me; laughing with my friends and their husbands and rejoicing in the women of God they have become; sleeping next to my husband and knowing that in the morning, I get to wake up and LIVE LIFE with him; being reminded daily that life is a process, and that there are no shortcuts on the journey; going for a run in the wilderness, being romanced by a big Texas sky; texting my sister all day, feeling so connected to her even two hours away; watching my students grow and change (and getting to hear them ask me if we are going to EXPERIENCE apples tomorrow)...God, I don't deserve any of it...at all!!

And yet, that's just the point.  Deserving it is not even a question, doesn't even cross my Lord's mind.  I don't...it shouldn't be mine...it should NEVER be mine...The point is not deserving it.  Rather, the point is that He grants it...because of who HE is.  The point is that He gives them, because He can...because He chooses to...because He's God.  And we, mere human beings who succeed most often and getting it wrong, get to enter into such grace, such love, such mercy in complete freedom...because He has first loved us.

I dare you today...don't just count your blessings...don't just name them one by one.  Shout them out...let them bring your face to praise...to adoration to the only Source of them all...don't just point them out and then turn to the next thing to get done.  Instead, let yourself burn with the joy of them...rejoice OUT LOUD that we can't deserve such perfect love, and let your love flow for the only One who can give it.

May this day be one in which you find yourself completely overwhelmed in His love, in who He is, and in the complete abundance of all He has given.

with joy~