Love, Laughter, Hope and Grace

This morning I wrote a piece about laughing and hope, and then grace and love added in. All day today I have been seeing this in people I watch, those I have talked with, and in books I am reading.

Tonight I am trying to write something for a sharing time on Saturday morning – the theme is Esther and how my testimony is an Esther story. What I keep thinking about is love, laughter, hope and grace that I see in Esther.

But I have come across a paragraph in Gerald May’s book, The Awakened Heart – Opening Yourself Up to the Love You Need He talks about recovery and God’s power and purpose. Here we often want the “God of the foxholes, of despair, the God whose only purpose is to rescue us.” Esther was sent to rescue her people.

But God is more than this. God is more than our rescuer. And as I read this next paragraph I thought about God as the God of love, laughter, hope and grace.

“There is certainly nothing wrong with seeing God as saviour; it is just that God is and wants to be so much more than that. Many of us come to an awareness of our desire for love through our need for some kind of healing or recovery. I would never have reclaimed my own search for the divine had I not been driven to it by desperation. But this can only be the beginning of authentic spiritual life. As we grow in love, the source of love becomes more important than anything. Everything, health and recovery included, becomes relative and is even put at risk. Although the holy One continues to be deliverer and sustainer, love calls us beyond using God to satisfy our needs, to heal us, to get us out of trouble, or to enhance our efficiency. Love calls us to gratitude, relinquishment, celebration, service, play, praise, companionship, intimacy, communion and always to deeper yearning. In other words, love calls us to love.”

This is a calling not just for threads in my life, but for a tapestry. For LIFE in capital letters; living, breathing, laughing, hoping, crying, yearning, pursing and running towards the God who yearns to know me and for me to know Him.

Tonight I hear Him, my Divine Maestro, calling to me “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you, says the Lord. I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.” The hope is the future God promises in this story in JeremiahThe love is His unwillingness to let go of His plans and His willingness to let me find Him as I search. The laughter is the joy as the captivity ends and the grace is that He chose this story of mine before time began so that He could redeem it so show me His heart as my own Divine Maestro!

Maybe Esther and I have more in common than I first thought.