Jesus Loves Me, This I Know
As I was sitting in front of my mirror on Saturday morning, doing my makeup and trying my best to look presentable, I thought about my friends and my friendships. As I thought, I was overcome by a mixture of humility and joy and thankfulness, and I broke down and wept over my blush and eyeshadow. I cried and cried and finally wiped my cheeks. Then I had to start my makeup over.
Then I thought about Jesus, and I started crying all over again. The broken body of our Savior is a terrifying and yet beautiful thing all at once. The blood is real. The sweat is real. The tears are real. They aren’t just symbols or sentiment or fiction or folklore.
There are times when I have rolled my eyes in my heart (and also not in my heart) at the idea of this “need” for authenticity and complete truthfulness in my friendships. I have recoiled in fear at the prospect of being known. We all have our secret boxes under lock and key and hidden under bed. I have thought, ‘Just laugh at my jokes and we’ll all have a good time and then how about lets each go our own way and think our real thoughts in secret, where no one asks any hard questions, and nothing really hard is required.’ Because, you see, my christianity looks much better on me with hymns and sacrament and platitudes and my finest Sunday dress. My confusion and pain and pride and fear all look pretty and perfect when cloaked in humor or cliches or obedient nodding. Don’t tell me that I am not whole. My plastic love for Jesus is not that much different than what you are saying that I need. Maybe I am not perfect, but I am certainly far better than most.
That was a long time ago. That was a time when I thought I was okay, and I thought my faith was fine–just a struggle like all the rest of you were having. And then I always found a way to love me more and love Jesus less. And the less I loved Christ, the less I loved the people who loved me. And the more I hurt them. We are very foolhardy people when we love ourselves too much [at all] and Jesus too little [never enough].
I have been criticized at times for having such deep relationships. And, at times, I have earned some of that criticism. I have been reprimanded for being too involved and caring too much and for being too tied to friends. I have been told I am [it is] too extreme and too much. And maybe it times it has been. But as I thought about it on Saturday, and as I thanked the Lord for friendships and the body of Christ, I thought about the literal body of Jesus. And I realized that that it is not just a symbol. His body walked the earth for many years. It carried Him around as He grew and ministered and taught and performed miracles. And it bore the strain of stress in the garden. Jesus sweat blood and He cried and His spirit longed for anything other than separation from His Father. His body sustained the weight of the cross for a time. And then it broke and fractured and crumbled when the weight and the strain became too much. Jesus’ blood was real. Jesus’ love is real. It is involved and cares too much and ties us to the very God most High. It is extreme and too much. It is too much for our small minds and confined, limited understanding.
I don’t deserve salvation. It isn’t even that I don’t deserve it. I am ill-deserving. “But God.”
I don’t deserve friendships so rich and deep. If frienships were equally reciprocal in all ways at all times, I would be without any. And yet God has intervened time and again. And time and again. And time and again.
So I wept on Saturday because God has bestowed on me more blessings than I could use in 10 lifetimes. I wept and now weep because I have seen Jesus more in real ways through these friendships than I have in all the years before I had them combined. I have been loved and protected and comforted and admonished and carried by Jesus in these friendships.
Leave out the Thee’s and Thou’s. The plastic has gone. Only the reality of Christ’s blood and love and sacrifice and the outpouring of His practical provision remains.
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Every Minute (by Sara Groves):
I am long on staying
I am slow to leave
Especially when it comes to you my friend
You have taught me slow down
And to prop up my feet
It’s the fine art of being who I am
And I can’t figure out
Why you want me around
I’m not the smartest person I have ever met
But somehow that doesn’t matter
No it never really mattered to you at all…
And at the risk of wearing out my welcome
At the risk of self-discovery
I’ll take every moment
And every minute that you’ll give me
And I can think of time when families all lived together
Four generations in one house
And the table was full of good food
And friends and neighbors
That’s not how we like it now
Cause if you sit at home you’re a loser
Couldn’t you find anything better to do
Well no I couldn’t think of one thing
I would rather waste my time on than sitting here with you…
And at the risk of wearing out my welcome
At the risk of self-discovery
I’ll take every moment
And every minute that you’ll give me
And I wish all the people I love the most
Could gather in one place
And know each other and love each other well
And I wish we could all go camping
And lay beneath the stars
And have nothing to do and stories to tell
We’d sit around the campfire
And we’d make each other laugh remembering when
You’re the first one I’m inviting
Always know that you’re my friend…
And at the risk of wearing out my welcome
At the risk of self-discovery
I’ll take every moment
And every minute that you’ll give me
Every moment and every minute that you’ll give me
Every moment and every minute that you’ll give me
Every minute…
amen
and amen