And you were dead in your trespasses
and sins, in which you
formerly walked according to the
course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, of the
spirit that is now working in the sons
of disobedience. Among them we too
all formerly lived in the lusts of our
flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh
and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as the rest.
But God, being rich in mercy, because
of His great love with which He
loved us, even when we were dead
in our transgressions, made us alive
together with Christ(by grace you have
been saved), and raised us up with
Him, and seated us with Him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so
that in the ages to come He might show
the surpassing riches of His grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
-Ephesians 2:1-7

I was going to end that sooner, but two things prevented me. Firstly, it’s just so beautiful I couldn’t find a good stopping place…and secondly, because the sentence itself didn’t stop. Oh Pauline sentences, how I love thee.

Seriously, such a gorgeous passage, is it not? And two of the most amazing and heart-stopping and enlivening and lovely and starkly beautiful words of all time…”But God.” And hope bursts into glorious bloom, life eternal. This passage is one of my favorites, so I don’t know why I’m trying to unnecessarily validate these verses with my pitiful words, but I just can’t help marveling at the amazingness of God’s most gracious love and compassion towards such desperately wicked men and women…oh what a joy that springs from my heart, abounding towards the God whose love abounds still more! And I think this passage may (subconsciously) be the pattern towards which all my gasps of poetry tend to slip into –

darkness, expanding and vicious and cold blackness and
the depths of deepest despair and when all is lost and
man is
lost in a storm of whirling shadows and
torn in pieces by the knife that was his own and
rotting in the grave so eagerly dug and
drinking the depths of the debt that is owed and
wavering in glazed reality and
on his knees in hopeless emptiness and
on his face in stark weariness and
letting go of the last that could be done and then
light.
Light forever.
Glorious Almighty God.
Light and love and God Himself,
the pinnacle of infinity that the universe strains to grasp.
Oh glorious Lord!
And overwhelmed in joy and overcome by love
and soaking in the blood of the Lamb that was slain,
she is
dancing in the spotless grace,
singing in the newborn praise,
seeing with adoring gaze,
feeling the more perfect rays,
and now she quivers and says,
Oh I love how can I not?
When by His blood I am bought?
He loved me first,
oh those glorious words,
He loves me!

…and that’s what happens when I let my mind stray and wander and ponder the incomprehensible fact that…the Almighty God of the Universe loved me. How else can I respond but by saying…’Oh I love how can I not?’ I love my Father so. Oh I love Him!!!! If my tears could but grace His feet, I would weep for being so close to Him…my Lord and my God, I love Him so!!!!