Glimpses

One of the things about God that delights me the most is how He gives us glimpses into things we could never comprehend with our finite human minds. 

Having children has given me opportunities to catch a glimpse of God's amazing love.  Before I had children, the idea of someone loving another person enough to lay down his or her life for that person was so far beyond my comprehension that it was nearly a fairy tale to me.  But then I carried a child in my body for eight months, and brought her forth with much pain and agony and when that little bundle was placed in my arms and she searched my face as if to memorize it forever, I knew that such a love could indeed exist.  I knew that I would lay down my life for my child without question.  And so I caught a glimpse of God's love for me.

Being divorced has given me an opportunity to glimpse the pain involved in the sacrifice God made for us.  I remember a point in my separation when I felt as though I was being torn from limb to limb.  I was being stripped of my purpose and identity as a wife.  I was losing the other half of my soul, seeing that holy thing that God had made by joining two individuals together in marriage violently ripped apart.  The pain was nearly unbearable.  Yet I know that pain was just the tiniest glimpse of what Jesus must have felt as He was separated from his Father in Heaven, who couldn't look on Him as he took on all the sin of the world.  The Godhead, the three-in-one who live in total unity, was being ripped apart.  A Holy thing was being destroyed, although only for a time.  So I have caught a glimpse of the pain of the crucifixion.

As we go through Holy Week this year, I am thankful for those glimpses into the reality of His love and His suffering for me.  May I never forget those glimpses, even as I ponder what His love compelled Him to suffer for me!