Confusion of Grace.

I woke up this morning, bleary eyed and wandered down the stairs.  Church at 10:30 means that we can all sleep in, well all except Abigail who wouldn't consider it sleeping in until she hit Noon.   I was well rested, but still tired.  As I wandered into the kitchen to get coffee, my lovely wife was there, dressed and ready for the day.  She is a morning person.  I am not.  The look she gave me woke me up.  With a big, radiant smile, she said, "Good Morning...I love you."  She was beaming.  I did indeed believe that she loved me.  It's hard to explain, because 20 + years in, I know that she loves me.  But this morning in particular, it was like she really loved me.  My response...mild panic.

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” 
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

I like this quote.  I identify with this quote.  I don't know that it particularly fits in this scenario, but it does hint at what happened inside of me when I realized that my wife loves me.  What was I to do with this unsolicited, unearned, unfounded expression of love?  My first response was to gather more information.  It's so absurd that my first response isn't just to accept it, good Lord what is wrong with me?  

So after I gave a responsive, but questioning "I love you, too."  I came back with a "What's up?"  

She raised her eyebrows, knowing that she confused me and enjoying the knowing, but still very much in love with me, "Nothing...how'd you sleep?"  Her face was still beaming.

"Good...real good.  What's going on with you?" I said, still trying to figure out what was going on.

"What do you mean?" she said coyly.

"You seem like you're in a good mood."  This was a stupid, year 1-5 sort of comment.  It suggests that I'm saying that she's not normally in a good mood.  Which is not true.  It's a subtle mistake in those early years, but something we should be well beyond now.  She is beyond it and doesn't dig in on it.  She does give a knowing smirk and then releases me of my miss-play and says, "Scott, I just love you."

Wow.  I can't process it, why can't I process it?  My mind vacillates between wanting to know if there is some other cause for this love and wanting to know if I had somehow done something in my sleep to earn this love.  If I had done something to earn it, I need to know so I can do it again!  As I think back to the previous day I remember that I was particularly annoying, which can happen on the weekend when I don't know what to do with myself.   Nothing had happened in particular to put her in a good mood.  I certainly had not done anything to earn this extra expression of love.  But by the time I came over to kiss her cheek I realized what was going on:  She was conscious of her love for me.  

In marriage, a working marriage, the love is always there.  Love is the framework and scaffolding from which all the productive life of a marriage is made.  It's always there, but it isn't always generating an emotion or the romantic feeling of love.  But there are moments, when you see the whole thing, the whole marriage, all the moving parts, all the work and all the joy and then you look at your partner and think, "Wow...this is Love."  I think that is what was happening for my wife this morning.  

As humans, we only have moments, small glimpses of the Truth.  We must use these moments to sustain our Faith.  Faith is the belief in something unseen, but not without evidence.  These moments of extra Love like my wife had this morning are glimpses into the unseen world, a quick look at what is really going on.  But we live out this Faith, this belief in a fallen world, a world waiting to be redeemed.  We only get moments of consciousness: but God is Love.  That means he is eternally conscious of His promised Love for us.  There are things I can do and have done that put a strain on my wife's Love for me.  But there is nothing I can do to make God lose sight of his Love for me.  No sin that is heinous enough to make him question it.  God Is Love.  And that is the driving force of all existence.

Peace and Hope

5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b]boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.