Good morning…
“I absolutely love the checkmark visual,” one subscriber wrote after Saturday morning’s post. “The word descent makes me think of falling completely in love and being totally dependent on God at happy times – my wedding and the birth of our children – in addition to the really difficult seasons.”
She’s right. Painful life seasons (the death of a loved one, a difficult diagnosis, an extra marital affair, an addiction, a divorce, a job loss, an unplanned pregnancy, an unwanted move, an empty nest, a natural disaster, an abrupt betrayal, a grueling season of infertility) each can cause this checkmark pattern to occur: we descend to die to the life of our dreams, hitting our rock bottom we fall into the limitless love of God, before gradually ascending higher, supernaturally lifted by the Spirit to thrive in a new life phase. Just as powerfully, positive life changes (a graduation, a new relationship, an engagement, a wedding, a baby’s birth, a chosen move, a new career, a new home, a second marriage, a new grandchild, a personal encounter with Christ) each can force us to leave behind an old, familiar normal, descending down deep into the endless love of God, before rising to a higher level of abundant, expansive life.
Then on Saturday night in Healdsburg, California, I witnessed with my own heart a checkmark experience.
Subtle, sweet-salty tears of loss and tears of greater gain melted from the eyes of the mother-of-the-bride, a bride who happened to be an only child. All of the motherly dreams had culminated in this special moment, and I sensed this mom’s tears pooling at the bottom of a life-changing checkmark. Letting go of her little girl felt like a profound motherly descent, yet she rested at peace in the unconditional, unending love of our LORD. As one life phase ended, a new one began. The same unconditional, unending love of God formed a firm foundation beneath this well-rounded young bride and her full-of-life groom, as they began their high ascent into their lifelong process of two becoming one, checkmark by checkmark, year after year.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (in tearful parents and in newlywed couples) throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV).
…Sue…
