I Love My Life!

The words slipped out before I realized what I was saying! I was talking to one of my dear friends this past Wednesday, and I heard myself saying, "I love my life!" And I almost wept...and I did weep later as I thought of it. Why?

Because that phrase used to be one that I used a lot, and I meant every word of it. But the events of this past 18 months stole that phrase from my vocabulary. Instead, more than once I heard myself saying just the opposite: "I hate my life!" (and I meant every word of that at the time, too!). So when "I love my life" spontaneously slipped from my lips this week, I knew that it was more than just a chance occurrence. Papa was wanting me to know that He has been healing some really deep wounds in me (duh!!).

I don't want to focus on me regarding this, though. Rather I want to thank God for holding onto my family and me so tightly over these past few months, holding onto me when I couldn't even think clearly enough to want to hold onto Him. And I want to thank Him for "shouting in our pain" over and over until we heard His voice in the storm. And I want to thank Him for surrounding me with so many loving friends that I won't know until Heaven how rich I truly am. And I want to thank Him for setting me free from the need to understand, replacing it with a renewed hunger just to be His little child. As I wrote to Papa in my journal yesterday, "it has been your patient wooing, healing and loving on me that have brought me to true understanding of intimacy with you again—thank you."

So with my future not really any clearer than it was a few days ago, I find myself facing this next year with hope and yes, even joy. I am still grieving, and I will for a long time to come, but I now grieve with clarity about Papa and His love that I didn't have before, and I will choose to step into His embrace when it gets dark the next time.

Romans 11:33-36 seems like a good way to end this note and this year:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (NIV1984)

My prayer for you, all of you and each of you, is that you too will be able to say, "I love my life!" Yes, there will be times when those words may be squeezed into silence for a while, but may the overall theme for all of Abba's children be permeated with this phrase.

I love my life (His life for me and in me),

Tom, one of Abba's little boys