Because of Him

I am most grateful that God chased after me for many years.  His pursuit of my soul had nothing to do with any perceived merits my imagination may have amassed during my existence.  I had no polished medals decorating my facade,  no carats of virtue to illumine my character.  There was no blazing jewel in my makeup to dangle before heaven and invite an inspired awe, nothing to persuade my Creator that I was worth saving.  My "good" was at best a selfish flaunt of orchestrated events that were designed (sometimes unconsciously) to draw acceptance.  Spiritually speaking, I was a corpse.  Decayed in my very DNA by a propensity toward rebellion, God was the farthest reality from my mind.  I didn't want to be bothered with the "God thing".

Today I cannot imagine where my life would be without God.  He has indeed made all things beautiful.  He has removed my mourning, that inner emptiness that I felt even as a preteen.  He has taken away my dread of Sundays.  It sounds odd, doesn't it?  Emptiness that I couldn't explain but I could feel stretched over my inner being, because I knew there was more to that day than just play.

Because of Him, I rejoice immensely when I behold His glory in the heavens above and the cosmos below.  I hear the green of the grass more deeply, and I smell the sound of the seagulls more profoundly through the colors of His love. 

 
Because He lives, I sorrow not as the world, for I am persuaded that my afflictions work for me "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."   Christ is risen, thus death is not the end, but the beginning.  "Life is a dream, and heaven reality", as Anointed penned it- a reality so dense with light and life that fighting for is the only thing logical.  Because He lives, this momentary journey is sanctified with the high calling of knowing and enjoying God.

This day I celebrate the wonder of the empty tomb as the means to the fullness of God's grace. "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow"-and every single day after that.