“This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we’re the most sure that love can’t conquer all, it seems to anyway.”
- Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies
I’m taking today off from (serious) blogging to spend the day with these sweet Valentines of mine.
I know it’s a commercialized hack of a holiday, but I don’t care. I love it anyway. I love the chance to celebrate love just because it exists in all its messy, broken, beautiful forms. I love stringing up paper hearts and an excuse to eat M&Ms for breakfast.
This morning, when I am usually writing, I was working on special love books for my babies, and there is no better anecdote to a cranky, February-worn, tired-of-mommying heart than to list out all the things I love about each one of my kids.
Granted, the kids were more excited about the chocolate-for-breakfast situation than the books, but still, this is a pretty great start to the morning:
I know that this can be a hard day. I know that the wild, unstoppable love of God feels neither wild nor unstoppable when you’re alone and surrounded by PDA. Or when you’re in one of the lean years of marriage — when everything feels strained and you’re afraid it might all fall apart.
Maybe today you’re waiting on something and you’re so tired of mustering up yourself to hope. Maybe you’re sitting with a loss that feels too big and your heart feels shattered inside you.
I know sometimes it’s all more than you can handle. I know it doesn’t feel like anything’s going to be all right again.
What I want to say to you is this: someday.
Someday this broken world will be set whole, and everything that feels wrong will be made right. Someday the distance between us will evaporate, and we will all sprawl on old ripped-up couches in some gigantic living room together.
We will know and we will be known. We will see that we have been part of each other’s stories all along. We will see God, and we will know that he is, has always been, enough.
Someday love will be restored all the way, and instead of being complicated and sharp, shattered and shattering, it will be Light.
It will be a landscape that we live in. And we will understand it then, maybe: how it was here all along. How these little glimpses were drawing us forward, drawing us into that wild, someday Love we were made for.
Today, may you see a glimpse. Just a glimpse. And remember someday.
Until then, Happy Valentines Day, from our family to yours.
Happy Valentines Day to you and yours.
Thanks Mark! Hope you had a great day as well!
Happy Valentines Day Addie! I’ve been pondering that Christ is truly enough, so I am enough today so your words ring sweet and true. Hoping love warms that snow off your back porch soon, although it is beautiful.
Thanks so much Shelly. (It is really pretty right now. Trying to appreciate it as much as possible.
)
This is beautiful! I love the “old couches” image, and this truth: “We will know and we will be known. We will see that we have been part of each other’s stories all along. We will see God, and we will know that he is, has always been, enough.”
I’ve found myself working toward that truth all week, in hopes of bringing glimpses of that new-heaven-and-earth love here, now. It has been rewarding work, but it’s also a blessing to know that “someday this broken world will be set whole.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Yes. It’s good for me to remember too. Thanks for the kind comment Kristin.
Beautiful & comforting words. Love this. Have a great Valentine’s Day!
Thanks so much Alyssa.
How do I love this piece? Let me count the ways. Especially: “We will see that we have been part of each other’s stories all along.” Thanks for the Valentine’s gift.
Thank you so much Carolyn!
For not being a serious post, this was sure a deep one. Thank you. You have inspired me to write, and keep writing. Just start. We all have a someday for something.
Definitely keep writing. Absolutely. Thanks Deborah.
Somehow I missed this on Valentine’s Day. It was lovely. my favorite part: “Someday this broken world will be set whole, and everything that feels wrong will be made right. Someday the distance between us will evaporate,”
Amen.