"You
have already given and done all," I answered through my tears.
He
smiled at that in what seemed like genuine approval, but how does a
mere creature accurately read the face of his transcendent Creator?
"You
know," He said, "I became a Man, not just to die for you,
but so that you could also know Me, and by knowing Me, know My
Father."
"But
there is nothing left for You to give," I said, overwhelmed that
He was speaking to me!
"I
delight to give My children the desires of their heart," He said
simply. "Do not think that there is an end to My grace. I made
you for Me. I know you and have gone to great lengths to enable you
to believe that I love you."
Then
suddenly I was back in the birthing room with my wife just before our
eldest daughter was born all those years ago. She was our first, and
I did not know Him at that time, or believe that He existed or cared
for me.
Incredibly,
I had not really wanted this beautiful and precious child in our
lives, so blatant was my selfishness. And I considered my wife to be
in great debt to me by my agreeing to allow this to occur.
Knowing
He was with Me now in reliving this experience filled me with
unfathomable shame.
How
could He have been so kind, even then, to such a one as me?
Then
I saw this child emerge into the world from her mother's womb and all
cynical speech and thought fled from me and I stared in awe at this
miracle of new human life. I did not know it, but tears were flowing
down my face, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, while
sober, and I literally could not speak.
Everything
I thought I knew and believed became as nothing, and I have since
come to know that the overflowing and surprising love that I felt for
my infant daughter at the very moment of her birth was His gift to
me, as much as she herself was.
It
was Him all along, and I did not know it.
That
same evening, right there in that same room, this new gift of life
stopped breathing for the briefest of instants, and when that
occurred my whole existence dropped out from under me like a
bottomless pit had opened up in the earth below me, to swallow me
forever.
This
too was His gift.
Within
seconds, frenzied but purposeful action by the attending midwife
brought my baby back to life without any permanent harm, but the
lesson of unbearable loss was seared into my heart and mind. From
that moment onward, my self-confidence and my ability to cope with
the vulnerabilities of this life began to crumble.
Days,
weeks and months passed in my memory once more, but this time I knew
He was with Me, right next to Me, as, of course, He had always been.
I saw my younger self wallow increasingly in self-pity, striving
diligently to deny that anything had changed, when everything had, in
fact, changed irrevocably. I was rapidly deteriorating from the
inside out. Soon there would be no facade, and the roiling chaos of
fear and panic would be laid bare for all to see.
Together,
the King and I saw me turn in desperation and utter selfishness back
to the depths of the well of alcohol, in rigid and brittle moderation
at first, but with the sure and certain secret knowledge that it was
a path that this time would inevitably lead me to final destruction;
and to the loss of the very things I could not even admit were
important to me. I would lose everything. I would lose her.
He
stood with me, as my delusion of competence and my ability to cope
with life collapsed like the fragile and ephemeral hallucination it
was, and I became the epitome of quiet desperation, casting
frantically about for some life preserver, becoming harder on the
outside, as the man I was inside dissolved in the fierce acid of
overwhelming fear.
Yet
another of His gifts.
Stubbornly,
inexcusably, I resisted the growing conviction that I could not
continue in this way for long without having all semblance of the
ability to live ripped away in an avalanche of self-pity and defeat.
Then
He showed me my wife, grieved beyond words that this child she loved
so much would have to be given into the hands of others to be cared
for during the day so that she could return to work, as I so
intractably insisted she do as soon as possible. And by His grace,
she sought comfort and strength from the only place where they could
be found, His love letter to His Creation - His marvelous Word.
He
comforted her and brought her to Him, so gently, so effectively, so
extravagantly lovingly, that she changed fundamentally right before
my eyes, and through Him, loved me more despite my utter
self-centeredness and self-absorption.
His
gifts kept coming inexorably, like wave after wave upon the shore,
unstoppable, undeniable, completely undeserved.
Until,
at the appointed time, He bestowed His greatest gift: He brought me
to the end of myself, and into His all-encompassing arms.
© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013
