The Dove Set Free

To be real is to be transparent. When one allows another to see the inmost part of their being…without fanciful decorated edges as that of a wedding cake, but the messy stuff that ensues when a one year old child celebrates his birthday….that is real! It’s easy to pretend we have a perfect life, but then again perhaps not. I would think it more difficult to portray the person we are not, rather than the person whom we truly are and which God made us to be. But why is it we fight to the end to expose the realness of life that has happened to us. Why do we care what another thinks, when we should only care what the Great I Am knows…and He knows all…sees all…nothing is hidden. Yet hide is the very thing we try to do just as Adam and Eve after their sinful endeavor into the luscious, juicy, forbidden fruit.

It is sad indeed and often irks one to the core when encountering an individual who prides themselves in the appearance of perfection. For beneath the glitz and glam is a poor soul longing to be real…to be transparent…and share the pain this life has brought. No one who walks this Earth has a perfect life, but each carries imperfections made perfect through one solitary life…Jesus Christ. He makes all things good. He works the bad for good even when good at the time of the crisis can not be seen. Only peace can come to the soul in bondage and become like a dove set free from its cage…receive whole heartily the gift God has given in Jesus Christ…and open your wings to fly freely without guilt and condemnation, but with mercy and love.

A Sweet Love Song

It remains one of my all time favorite songs. It brings me to tears each time I listen to its somber and humble words. When I hear the song it reminds me of two people…Billy Graham and my beloved Grandmother Bowser. She often talked about the great preacher of peace and salvation. It was watching this revered man of God that a Lamb captured the soul of a child’s heart in the quietness of her childhood bedroom amidst a family in turmoil. He hugged me sweetly and He has never let go since the tender age of 10 years old. No one was there. It was just me and my Abba. He reached down from heaven that cold winters night as the wind whipped and the naked trees scratched at the window panes; He touched me.

We’ve become very close, my Jesus and me, since He stole my heart 32 years ago. He has been there when I left home at 18 years old, the death of my dear grandparents in college, depression, celebration of marriage, divorce of my parents, birth of my three children, and the diagnosis of autism for my beautiful daughter. He reminds me daily of the power I have to overcome because of one simple fact. I am His child! He sings daily in the sweetest of voices just how much He loves me through the glory of His creation as the sun beams upon my face. I ask Him, “Why?” I know I do not deserve such love for I am the one whose sin brought Him to suffer death on the cross. He replies, “That’s just how much I love you!”