Loving Longing Carpenter,
What beautiful scripture! Even just a few weeks ago, I would not yet have been sensitive to this way of thinking; to these ideas. My retreat in Colorado really opened me up to this.
The words which stuck out to me when I read the passage a second time was the last part of verse 1: "I have called you by your name, you are mine." I've heard it a million times, but this time it really stuck out. Because of the intellectual, emotional and spiritual milieu in which I've been existing recently, these words seemed really personal and relevant. I had a vision of a carpenter taking a pinch of fine saw dust, holding it in front of his lips, whispering my name on the dust, then blowing on it so the dust went out and began to swirl. While I didn't envision it, the implication was that the sawdust became me.
Lord, you created me specifically. I'm not just one more human produced in an implacable overflow of natural biology, but one of your individually crafted children. A child whom you put careful attention and love into. Into whom you literally put blood, sweat and tears. Thank you, Lord.
We are, in part, biological. You have done this intentionally. We are flawed, weak and temporary in this form. We suffer much because of original sin and the reality of our physicality. However, it's a wonderful gift to know I am loved. It's a wonderful gift to have been crafted at all, and especially wonderful that I was crafted so weakly. Without my weakness and imperfection, there would be no Steve-shaped hole in You in which I could reside. No place Your love could grasp onto me and carry me. I'd be weak and lonely in my strength.
The overall passage gave me this sense that You were longing for us, for me, that I would see Your love for me. You weren't merely reciting a list of things you'd done in the past, but were stirred to emotion for me to love You. Almost like a lover pleading for his love to be enough. Pleading to be accepted, and loved in return. Not in a weak way, but in a way rooted in the observation of our insensibility to what's important. No. Like a father. Gently holding our hand, my hand, and pointing out the examples of his love. The places he showed up in the past to save us. The steps he took to create this moment, where I am, in the wake of the Crucifixion.
I wouldn't say this stirred a ton of emotion, but it definitely affirmed my existing sense of being loved, and my sense of loving You. But my vision was a fresh new way of seeing that love. Of sensing that I, eeyyyeeeee specifically, was created. That's the first time I've really seen that.
Thank You, Lord. Amen.