I just really, really love You

Digging a little deeper these days. Finding there is grace to do more than I ever thought. Have harder conversations. Pray more. Fit in that extra need. Stay awake one more hour. It shouldn't be an easy burden, but when we get it springing from the right well, the right motivation, it somehow is.

Still... sometimes-- a lot of times-- I want to be overwhelmed.

Just last night, I sit by my son's bedside as he cries and cries and repeatedly tries to get up and I think to myself how tired I am and how long this day has been and I so badly want to calculate how many years I have been doing this very routine, but I know to stop before I even begin, because even if I measure the years of giving that are behind me, the ones ahead stretch out further and scarier. Instead, I put my hands on both his cheeks and he tries to push them away; he is crying messy tears and he is angry with me. But I just put them back and say, "Oh Oliver... I love you. I just really, really love you."

I say it for him.

I say it for me.

I say it for Him.

I say it because at the end of the day, I have cooked and I have taught and I have broken up disputes and I have sinned and I have said too much and I have said too little and I have reached out and I have kept to myself, but You know, Lord, that I love You. You know, Lord, that I'm doing this thing called life for You. Often wrong. Often messing it all up. But I'm trying. Because I love You, Jesus. I just really, really love You.

And the truth is He loves first and He loves best and He gives grace to take that deep breath again, to teach, to try, to repent, to give.

I've been thinking lots about that broken and contrite spirit, the one He doesn't despise. I've been thinking about how too often I want to hide the brokenness, retreat from Him in my frailty, when I ought to be pouring it all out before Him. I ought to be letting Him make beauty from my ugly ashes. I ought to be letting Him show His glory through and in spite of this earthen vessel.

So I lay it all out again. Right in the tough moments, the ones I don't have the answers for, the ones I'm certainly not wise enough to understand, the ones I am pretty sure I'd rather shrink back from.

And He gives grace.

I want to hold back the loaves and fishes I have, embarrassed by how meager they are in relation to how great the need.

But He gives grace.

And so I give it, not because I think it is anything good or wonderful-- I know it's not-- but because You know, Lord, that I love You. I just really, really love You.