Sabbath Words #7… Bend for Love

 

 

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26

I had to hunt for God’s peace early one morning when I experienced doubt over a decision we made several years ago. Should we stay in the US? Friends were moving to another country and we still miss them being our neighbors in the same time zone. What should we do?

It was a brief flirtation with the possibilities. Leave our grandkids?  We have been separated from our adult kids before, I never acknowledged just how much I missed them.

Sure, we emailed, Skype’d and used snail mail.

Until we actually moved back to the states I would never let my heart feel the yearning and missing.

On the morning of our youngest son’s birthday, I was sitting in bed sipping coffee and chatting with my husband about the family lunch we had planned. Suddenly, I wept. Unbidden tears came. Then the choking voice,  ‘This is the first birthday we’ve been with him for years.”

That’s not unusual for kids as they head off in adulthood. He was not yet going off to adulthood. He was still a student.

However, it was the catalyst that broke through into my guarded heart. I love my family so much and truly enjoy them.

I cry over movies when families are reunited. I wonder and mourn when I would hear a mother’s story that their families somehow don’t speak to each other.

Broken hearts and unbending actions that take over not knowing or being willing to consider forgiveness or grace.

Reconciliation is so very hard!

will no one bend for the sake of love?

Will no one bend for the sake of love?

He did the handwork that is needed for reconciliation.

Christ did more than bend. He laid aside deity and learned obedience even to death. Death on the cross.

My story is interwoven in His. With His help, I do try to live with the values of grace and forgiving. That is only part of what being His means to me.

His words are forever. So there can be a bending and hope coupled with forgiveness. There can be grace extended to one another. Because of Christ, I believe it can and will happen.

 

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,  namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5: 18-19