And my song shall ever be:
Oh, how marvellous! Oh, how wonderful!
Is my Savior's love for me!
I don't know why but that chorus has popped into my head a fair bit since Thursday evening so I thought I'd start with it.
I'm so out of practice with blogging that it's hard to know what level to aim for. One thing I know is that I have already taken my sleeping pill so the countdown is on.
I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.
I was working on one of my editing projects earlier this evening, trying to kill two birds with one stone: I wanted to out-work the feeling of being a lump and having wasted a day (I had just woken up from a four-hour nap), and I wanted to decrease my frustration with being about 50 pages behind on this particular project. At the time, I wasn't into it. I wasn't into editing, I wasn't in to thinking, I wasn't into sitting upright at a table, I wasn't into being awake, and I'm not sure I was into being here at all. So, paragraph by paragraph it was a struggle.
For me it was in the garden
He prayed: "Not my will but Thine."
He had no tears for his own griefs,
But sweat drops of blood for mine.
But I was determined. I wanted to try to learn something about self-discipline. I also knew that the pile-up of pages would only get worse the longer I put this off. I also felt very much like crying (which would be why I wanted to lie down/sleep/block out). Somehow I managed to stick with the text and meet (then surpass) the quota I had set for the session. But what amazed me was what triggered the tears (few though they were):
"In taking the penalty for sin upon himself, God not only saves us from punishment but he saves us from sin itself. This is very important. God does even more than satisfy justice and remove our legal guilt by paying the penalty for our sin: he also restores us to a right relationship with himself--the relationship that we broke in our rebellion. Ultimately, God brings us back to himself so that we can spend eternity with him in a place that is characterized by perfect righteousness. The eternal state cannot be ruined by evil, because every human being who is there has been saved from both the penalty and the power of sin. Their nature is conformed to perfect righteousness: their desires no longer incline towards evil. They have been saved to sin no more."
There were a few other sentences scattered before this paragraph that similarly described some beautiful things that Jesus has done or that Jesus is and they choked me up, too, but this paragraph was the one that did me in. I was struck. I was struck by the content but I was struck that I was struck. Feeling like garbage, hating my very existance, and close to despair because I don't see relief on the horizon, I find myself brought to tears by the beauty of the gospel. Somehow it doesn't fit---though it really, really does. [If it's not clear from my awkward phrasing, words fail.]
He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calv'ry,
And suffered and died alone.
I mean, what didn't fit was that they weren't tears of joy. They were something like tears of anguished anticipation. I want to KNOW that gospel more. I want to READ the Gospel accounts more. I want to see Him more clearly. I want to read the New Testament this very instant! (In my daily reading I've just finished Jeremiah so I'm definitely feeling a longing for the Messiah to show up.)
It's hard to describe. I didn't feel particularly comforted... but I certainly didn't feel worse. It was like accessing pure joy without feeling a shred of happiness. That's a weird combination! But I'm so glad the story is true. I'm so glad the Truth is legit and I'm SO THANKFUL that God won me.
In the next paragraph "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" was quoted and that stirred me again but in a slightly different way. I have really grown to love Christmas in the past couple years--by God's grace--in the right way. I love the Incarnation. (I also happen to love winter.) I love that He came and I love that we celebrate. I have grown to love Christmas, even through some of our weirder human traditions. It's a brilliant time of year. I also love that hymn. Christmas is another example of that pure-joy-under-real-pain phenomenon. Christmastime flushes out the greatest dysfunctions and insufficiences within my family of origin--BUT THEN CHRIST LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER. I don't know how to describe it. He took me to a painful place during Christmas 2009 to learn this, but every year since has been such a profound worship [experience] that I almost love that pain. Whatever it took to make Him look this good.
When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
'Twill be my joy trough the ages
To sing of His love for me.
Oh, how marvellous! Oh, how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
Oh, how marvellous! Oh, how wonderful!
Is my Savior's love for me!
I forgot how much I enjoy writing.
Come, Lord Jesus.
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