Stay in my love...
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My boys on the day they met...
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love. I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.” John 15:9-11
“Stay in me. Stay in my love. Stay in me. Stay in my love.” I hear Jesus whisper these words to my heart. Everything in this world seems to be pulling me away from this center, this place of awareness of the utter reckless love of God, flowing to me constantly.
“Make your home in my love,” He continues…
What would it feel like to live in constant awareness of being in the center of God’s abundant heart of love? What would it look like to live loved? To receive, moment by moment, the reality that I am surrounded by the presence of the Father of Compassion, the God of all Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3); to sense the tenderness of the divine gaze of Jesus; to experience the fullness of the Spirit of Life flowing to every part of my being.
When little angel boy, our Isaac, came into our family, we suddenly had a son. As I’ve written about before, the dream of a son, that had been long dead and buried, was resurrected in one phone call, one yes that has led to a life-time of yeses.
“My boys” is not a phrase I ever dared even hope to utter, and here I am, finding myself asking, “How are my boys?” “When will my boys be home?” “There you are! My boys!”
Seeing them together has been an invitation of the Spirit to “taste and see” what it looks and feels like to make my home in God’s love.
Show me the wonders of your great love,
you who save by your right hand
those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings
Psalm 17:7-9
The psalmist asks God to SHOW him the wonders of His love. This is the cry of my heart. Oh God, give me a fresh revelation of your love, because I know that this is the invitation of my life, to receive your love and then to give it away.
Through “my boys” God gives me a fresh revelation of His love.
Isaac is truly the apple of Doug’s eye. Each morning, I hear Doug greet Isaac with the affectionate words, “Where’s Daddy’s boy?” Isaac lights up as he basks in his daddy’s adoration.
Whenever Doug is home, Isaac is never far behind. When Doug returns from work, Isaac runs to him, reaches for him, longing to be lifted up into his daddy’s arms. As Doug sweeps him up, Isaac puts both his little hands on Doug’s face and just takes him in for a moment.
When Doug is lying on the floor, icing his back, Isaac nuzzles up under his arm…a picture to me of what it feel like to hide in the shadow of God’s wings. Other times Isaac will simply sit on Doug’s chest, his legs, his stomach. Anything to be near him, on him, with him.
The other morning, Doug squat down to pick something up in the kitchen and within seconds, Isaac had plopped himself down between Doug’s legs.
Wherever Doug is, Isaac finds his way there. He is most at home in the arms of his Daddy, in the presence of his daddy.
Doug and I are so very aware of this invitation, this picture God is giving us of how He wants us to be at home in His love, to stay in Him. We look at each other in wonder and our eyes sparkle with tears at this gift of grace.
This is hard. Starting over. Having a toddler in our late 40’s.
But in the midst of the every day responsibilities of caring for another little one, God comes and reveals who He is and we are swept right up into the heart of God.
So much love. So much joy.
Jesus invites, “Stay in me. Stay in my love. Make your home in my heart of love.”
Isaac is teaching me how.
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