oh, love . . .

Oh, love that will not let me go

I rest my weary soul in Thee

I give You back this life I owe

And in Your ocean depths, its flow

May richer, fuller be . . .

Oh, joy that seeks me through the pain

I cannot close my heart to Thee

I chase the rainbow through the rain

And feel the promise is not vain

That mourn shall tearless be . . .

Oh, cross that lifts and holds my head

I dare not ask to fly from thee

I lay in dust life’s glory dead

And from the ground, their blossoms red

Life that shall endless be,

Life that shall endless be.

Oh, love that will not let me go . . .

What strange lyrics, it seemed, for me to be dwelling on this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  But I have been.

Since some time yesterday, when the words popped into my head, they have remained there, refusing to cease their refrain.  So I have ended up speaking them to myself quietly, in snippets.  Or singing them, in their entirety, while walking with my baby niece.  Or being moved to tears by the power of the words.

So it was that I wept my way through the service last night, and through the breaking of the bread.  It started with the words running through my head; it was spurred on by the solemnity of the liturgy and the readings of the Word.  And it was brought to a head by the powerful emotions bubbling forth from my bruised and aching heart.

I do not like to speak of such things as “broken hearts”—at least not in the common way they are dwelt on in the affluent Western world.  But there is a way in which I often feel burdened by a heart that cannot linger long in any sort of happiness.  It makes its way, with regularity in my cycle of life, to a state of contemplative grieving.  Now to clarify, I do not mind this tendency.  For the most part, the sorrow I feel is one that seems right—fitting for one living in a world where things are not as they should be.  Not as they will be, somc day, when the One who rights all things returns to right our world.

But for now, I wait in peaceful expectation.  And on this Christmas Day, it occurs to me that such expectation is, in a manner of speaking, the most right way I could imagine, in which to celebrate this day.  So I soak up the presence of my sweet family as we linger together.  I gaze at the beautiful faces of my young nieces.  I laugh with the baby as she giggles and claps.  And I remember a child who was expected, and who came, so many years ago.