Aisle

I originally wrote this one on Valentine's day and posted it on Instagram. However, I've been feeling recently that perhaps someone may need it here. So I've decided to repost my thoughts. I hope and pray that my thoughts and words may lead you into a beautiful place of intimacy with an individual who loves you more than anyone else in the world. I pray that these words meet you exactly where you find yourself today and be precisely what you need to hear. And if you've never met before, please allow me to make some introductions as much as possible.

Today On Valentine's Day, I have to be honest, I spent most of it sitting and reflecting with the Lord. Because he's been doing a lot of beautiful deep heart healing With me recently, which I'm not going to share on here. But as I was doing that and flipping a little bit through Instagram. Over the smallest amount of time. I started thinking and pondering a few different things, especially as I looked through all the couples' photos and the wedding photos.

I started to think about Jesus, the bridegroom who has waited so long for his wedding day. Because no matter how long a person on this side of Heaven has waited to marry the love of their life. No one has waited longer than the Christ. No one has waited more purely; no one has pursued or fiercely loved more than he has. No one is planning a more beautiful wedding than he has, and guess what, you had nothing to do with the planning whatsoever. He has designed every single moment of that wedding since the beginning of time. No one has thought more about the wedding night than he has. No one has thought about that first look more than he has. No one has ever gone to the lengths that he has to wait for you, love you, lavish you, and romance you. I could write forever, and I'd run out of words, out of metaphors. I don't even have the words. He has written his vows over and over and over again. He recites them over and over again. And his vows are always going to sound better than yours because he is the author of all time. No one has waited longer than he has. No one has loved you more than he has.

Today I also thought about the father who loses his children in an airport or a mall and can't find them. The mother goes grocery shopping and looks away for two seconds, and their child wanders off. How the mother and the father immediately following those moments frantically go searching for children that are theirs.

Asking random strangers if they saw the child or children and how desperate they sound; how uncontrollably worried they sound, and how fiercely they long to hold them. I thought about a father in Heaven who walked into a garden one day and immediately knew something was wrong. Because his children didn't come running to him. They didn't come laughing with joy, longing for the absolute perfect bear hug. The one that is always perfect with just the right amount of pressure. The father knew exactly where they were all the time. He never actually took his eyes off them... But they just took their eyes off him. How fiercely that same father today at every moment it's frantically in search of every child that is his. Who sees them all the time. Yet because the little child has wandered long among too tall people; entries ways and trees that are very, very high, they can't see their father clearly. They've wandered down a lot of store isles and down through a lot of airport terminals. And some of them have walked around the corner and lost sight of their father's face or the sound of their father's voice because the noise around them has become very, very loud and overwhelming.

Or simply because the nice lady down the hall doesn't want to help them find their dad. Because she's too busy trying to carry her groceries in her apartment, I thought about the father today who's searching so fiercely and loving so deeply. The one who is looking with eyes of liquid love answering, "I'm right here. It's OK. I'm right here; I'm right here behind you. I'm right in front of you." Or, in some cases, he's running down the street with so much joy that he's sobbing his eyes out because his little girl or the little boy is half running. Still, it's more like totaling down the street because, let's be honest, we all look like children, and we all look like babies when we get wrapped up in the papa bear heart of God. I don't know if you realize this, but my God literally gets so excited when his child gets home that he screams in joy with tears streaming down his face. I don't have adequate words for it. But if I may on this Valentine's Day, I dare you to ask him about it.