The Great I AM – A tiny, helpless infant.

A couple of nights ago I attended a Christmas concert at Vision of Glory Lutheran Church in Plymouth, MN. One of the vocalists sang the beautiful song “Mary Did You Know?” It is my favorite Christmas song by far. Every time I hear it I am deeply moved by the reality of the words. Here they are, for those of you unfamiliar with the lyrics:

“Mary Did You Know”

[Originally written by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene]
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water? Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters? Did you know that your Baby Boy has come to make you new? This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man? Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand? Did you know that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod? When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?
Mary did you know.. Ooo Ooo Ooo
The blind will see. The deaf will hear. The dead will live again. The lame will leap. The dumb will speak The praises of The Lamb.
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation? Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations? Did you know that your Baby Boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb? The sleeping Child you’re holding is the Great I Am.

The song’s last sentence transfixed me.

I self-published a book entitled “God with Us: A Walk Through the Gospels” about nine years ago and in the chapter “Mary’s Son” I, too, contemplated some wonder-filled thoughts. As a little devotional piece in keeping with this time of year, I’d like to share an excerpt of my ponderings.

“Wonder Just a Little …
…”Why did God choose to come to earth as a baby? Why did He become a vulnerable, needy, baby boy? What motivated Him to do this? What purpose did it serve that He became one of us–including the need to cut teeth? He learned to crawl, walk and talk. He grew in wisdom–which means He learned.

Can you imagine the Word of God eventually picking up words of Aramaic from His parents in order to speak? He is wisdom itself. By His Word, all things exist.

Can you see His parents’ delight in their small child’s first steps? Imagine, the engineer of the universe toddled. It’s simply too overwhelming to comprehend.

This mystery of God’s incarnation is far too comfortable a notion in our minds. We are way to numb. Once in a while our hearts are awakened with wonder [like what happened to me during those transcendent moments the other night during the Christmas concert]…A shock of truth makes its way through the layers of indifference.

When Jesus walked on water, He shocked a few people. He did this after thirty years of being an ordinary person, hidden in the ordinary lives around Him. But Jesus was no ordinary human being. He was fully God and fully man. This is why He came the way He did.

He wanted to be fully human. [Even an ordinary human being.]

Why? Why did He live that hidden ordinary life for so long? Thirty years. What does this tell us about God’s inner life–His heart–about His motives?

Is it possible God simply wanted to love and be loved? He wanted to be known, and He knew we couldn’t know Him because He was too far above and removed from us. Did He want to be handled and held?

[The sleeping Child you're holding is the Great I Am!]

Did He simply want to be intimately known? There is something very tender about God’s desire to be loved in this way. Why did God desire to experience all that we experience?

Imagine what this meant to a simple carpenter named Joseph. The Lord of heaven and earth, as a baby, began a face-to-face, long term, intimate relationship with Joseph as “his son.” Vulnerable for the first time, God completely entrusted Himself to the very creatures He made. Mary and Joseph were chosen for the most privileged roles of the Ages. How could an ordinary man, called to be an ordinary dad, be the “dad” to Divinity? How could a young woman bear the Creator in her womb?

Did Joseph and Mary know they held their own Maker when they held little Jesus? Did Joseph realize that when he taught Jesus how to work with his hands, that his son’s hands had made him? Did Mary and Joseph ever tremble at the scope of responsibility placed upon their shoulders? Perhaps Jesus’ full identity remained a mystery to them during Jesus’ life. This same great mystery–the earthly life of and mission of Jesus–was the drastic means God took, the tremendous lengths He went to, to bring “Eden” life to us. Eden means delight.

How God longs for intimacy with us. He couldn’t give any more of Himself than He did in the WAY He came to us, and He couldn’t have better proved His love to us than the WAY He showed it to us. Now we know God’s unrelenting, surpassing, surprising, everlasting, love.

Good News! Many are Following Jesus Here

As you can see from the FOLLOW video located at this website http://www.elevationchurch.org
, something quite extraordinary is going on at Elevation Church in Charlotte. I’m seeing that more each week.

My daughter, age 28, had been through life-threatening lows lately and recently gave the direction of her life to Jesus. She found this rather “new” church, which started I think less than five years ago, and asked if I’d like to go with her. I happily went along to support her. Oh my … words cannot express the amazing things going on there and how PERFECTLY-TIMED the messages and such have been for my daughter.

Far from being “typical”, the vibrant church uses cutting-edge technology and media, plus “Rock Concert” worship, passionate and gifted talent that is reaching and connecting people with God’s powerful, relevent message of life-transforming, inclusive love. This church gets it – this isn’t tame, nice people simply following the traditions they’ve been brought up with … this is what Jesus was like — shaking things up, making a big noise, not mincing words, not watering down the Gospel. This is what Jesus died for – people who know what it is to be SAVED and act accordingly. What a dynamic thing to be caught up in and be a part of!

My daughter is among those who spontaneously answered the call to be baptized on the spot after a sound, short teaching on what BAPTISM MEANS TO JESUS. The Baptism event wasn’t even announced beforehand. See what I mean about not being typical?

Besides the free T-shirts, towels, and necessary hygiene products freely given to those ready to obey the timeless call of Jesus to follow Him and publicly proclaim it through water baptism, the entire event struck me as being so relevent. Jesus is RELEVENT.

I hope you will feel the tangible joy of that morning.

A week before the baptism event, the church was featured on prime time news. The news crew visited and documented the church’s “growth explosion” and aired the story with wonder. God is celebrating and is spreading the Good News of what it looks like to follow Jesus in our days, in our city.

A Time for Faith – for Lovers of God

For the last month I’ve stepped into another unwanted transition. It isn’t the first time I’ve been in survival mode within five years, but this might be the bleakest. Things could be worse, of course, so I count my blessings, but not without questioning the Lord in my prayer times. Hmm…I’ve wondered, for example, why I’m encountering what begins as particularly well-suited opportunities, that turn into closed doors and deferred hope. Knowing the particulars involved, I can easily blame our hurting economy, which is also in survival mode.

The timely sermons at church encourage me not to worry but trust in God, to make Him my one and only. He’s the Source of all we need. The Lord continues to get His point across to me. His mercy and understanding is a flood of grace whenever needed. It comes on an “as needed basis” for those He calls His own. I am also looking hard to find a job, but I start to worry if I think too much about how and where to live, and about those who need me. I try to keep focused on Jesus, who walked on water to get across a stormy sea and to the place He was heading.

It seems I am sitting in a boat, it’s terribly dark, stormy, everything is tossing and heaving, and I don’t even know which shore I should head towards.  At this moment, all I see is Jesus and He’s  barely within sight of my pitching, frightening situation. So, I live these days in faith and trust, but not without occasions of panic.

Putting the present aside for a moment, I perused some of my earlier blogs here. I read the one “Mountains of Glory” which, by the way, gets the most hits. I reminisced about my mountaintop experience with the Lord when I went to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and the Mount of Beatitudes along the Sea of Galilee. That was in 2009. In 2010 I completed the novel the Lord inspired me to write: His Kingdom Come. It turned out wonderfully. 2011 hasn’t been so kind.

My past blog helped me remember the beauty of Jerusalem and the Galilee area, Israel’s two sacred mountains, the inspiration I experienced and the acute sense of the Lord’s presence I felt there. The holy ground of those mountains beneath my feet, the view my eyes beheld . . . the memory is still vivid. I felt on top of the world there and God’s Spirit burned true and real within me. Those were bright, heavenly places. And I knew then that we live in the days ushering in the climax of the Ages – the nearness of our Beloved’s return. So, although I am in a different place right now, I know it’s not forever and God will intervene for me. 

The other day I read Luke 18:8 in which Jesus unveiled His heart so poignantly: “…When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

Faith means everything to the Lord. I’d like to live this time of uncertainty and at least give Him a little pleasure – if nothing else, that He will see my faith and smile.

Date setting “prophets” don’t know God very well.

On May 20th, one of my adult children asked me what I thought about news-making Christians who thought they’d be the next day ”raptured” … which is to say they’d be “swept up and away and into the clouds of heaven, caught up in the air with Jesus.” 

I told him I thought nothing of it since Jesus himself had said,  “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” Matthew 24:35-37 .

I wondered how people could be fooled about it when the Scriptures plainly tell us we cannot know the day or hour Jesus is coming again. I began to reflect, however, that Jesus admonished us to know when the season for His coming is upon us and that we must be ”be ready” for that Day.

Matthew 24 is chucked full of information Jesus left us about the things to expect regarding the Last Days. God has amply spoken to us about these things through the prophets and His apostles. He continues to speak to His own even today in a myriad of ways. If we only realized His voice more! 

For those who are listening … and I count myself in that number, we stake our lives on the fact that He wants us to believe in Him as the foremost reason for all prophecy and know His heart, and know why He’s warned us of the times to come. Prophecy is the revelation of God — of His words — of His existence and of His heart. What I have learned is that God loves us and has a plan of redemption. He knows the future as well as the past and present. We can tap into that wisdom, that merciful love of His, at any time. All we need to do is listen to Him, know Him as revealed in Scripture and by His Holy Spirit moment by moment. When we are in the last of the Last Days, we will know it. Everybody I know agrees — we are on the brink of God’s climactic Story on earth. Even non-believers sense it.

People who don’t know our Lord as merciful and slow to anger, filled with lovingkindness and patience, don’t know Him very much. Even as God Himself told Moses, these are His character qualities. And, His desire is not that anyone suffer in the end of days or that anyone perish. He gave Himself fully to us in the form of His Son, the “express image” of God (taking off His glory that we might see Him and get to know Him). He then gave us more of Himself… pouring out His Spirit to live within us. The Lord’s people are those who have faith and trust in Jesus as their Lord and know His voice, not only in the written word, but in everyday life.

That makes us the prophets of today. False prophets set dates, real prophets simply stay ready.

God never stopped speaking to us or to the world. I think the devil’s greatest weapon against us is to distract us from what is of vital importance. To be ready, we need to stay “aware of God’s continued presence” with us every day, every night, day in and day out.  We must resolve ourselves to keep awake, eyes focused on spiritual things, on Heaven itself, attentive to the Spirit’s voice, and to the Lord Jesus’ profound and intimate love that surrounds each one of us. His love is not like Man’s — it is sure, not fickle, and protective–and it will never fail us nor will it forsake us.   

People who know God concur that we are nearing the end of days on this planet. These people do not fear this time that is fast approaching; no, we are a people, a family, who longs for Jesus’ coming.

We will know Him as He knows us. We will experience nothing but LOVE AND JOY AND WELLBEING. We will see God. We will be like the angels … only, I believe, we will love Jesus more because we will realize what He’s done for us when we see Him. Right now we can’t imagine what He gave up for us… or what He really suffered for our sakes. We will know and enjoy Him as the Bridegroom of our souls! And we will be with Him forever.

Until then, those who are His own, who have the hope of Heaven in their hearts, look forward to the coming of Jesus.  We long to see the fulfillnent of “His Kingdom Come.” What a blessed Day that will be.

If anyone is not of God, not of this Kingdom, that person cannot help but fear that Day. So, why not take God at His word? Our deepest conscience recognizes the Truth when we hear it, when we seek God with all of our hearts. The God of Israel revealed Himself first to the Hebrew nation, then to the rest of the world. Prophecy tells the entire story — from Genesis’ Creation to the final Revelation of Jesus Christ.

God’s own Kingdom dawned upon our earth the moment Jesus was born and it burned brightly on the Day of Pentecost; in the final days, the heavens will brighten up like lightning at the coming glory of His Kingdom and Jesus’ presence with us will change the laws of nature — for the sun will no longer need to shine on the days He spends with us. Oh, if we knew God even a little, we’d know the time is near – even, as Jesus said, “at the Door.”

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve felt inspired by God’s truth and I want to be dressed and ready to go with Him the moment He arrives. I have to be honest, I’ve been distracted by a lot of nonsense lately. I want to be ready and live expectantly. When we feel dull towards God, we’re acting the part in Jesus’ story (which takes place right before His coming) of the five virgins who fell asleep with empty oil lamps. When the Bridegroom came, He left them behind. In fact, He claimed He didn’t even know them.

That’s the key to being ready — to do whatever it takes to KNOW Him–and to pray always, which is to be aware of His constant presence. Then we will be aware of the times we live in. We will live “awake” to Him. And, we will not be distracted or tangled up by things that matter little to nothing to Him. That is my prayer, to stay awake and be filled with the oil of His presence. Every single day.

A Living Now Word from God in a Dove Candy Wrapper

I confess — I haven’t felt like writing a thing and have been waiting many weeks to be inspired enough to write a decent blog post. I’ve been in a spiritual desert. You know, when life gets hard, troubles mount, you feel like you can’t bear for another day the life-draining job and crashing family issues. Worse, you barely even think about God,  He’s distant — not here and not now. I have felt like I was misplaced … that things weren’t right. I considered, I mean I seriously considered, putting my home on the market, quitting my job … I imagined a stress-free existence living with my mother or a friend. I’ve been invited into their homes … I could live quite inexpensively. And, you know … I could run away from all this and actually lighten my load. But, is this what God wanted? And, really, is it what I wanted? That’s when I cried out to the Lord one night after going to bed.

 I talked to Him as though He were lying next to me. I let him have my frustratation and  begged Him for direction. I planned my escape… asked for signs of His support. I was ready to fly away.

Guess what? Overnight – my inner being filled with inexplicable joy, contentment, and hope. These are real things. I don’t understand how God fixes us –  our hearts and minds actually change… it’s miraculous the way He does this. It has been about three weeks since then and but I am still “happy” and feeling strong. Not only that, since then He’s tranformed the situations that were going on. My job is etraordinarily better … the family issue that was so terrible completely turned around. This is miraculous. On top of all that, God gave me a word in a chocolate Dove candy wrapper. Even before I unwrapped the piece of candy I felt like God was preparing me. It’s like I “knew” there was a special message for me in the wrapper while I opened it. Sure enough … inside the foil were the words: “You are where you are supposed to be.” I grinned and then popped the candy in mouth and enjoyed it while enjoying God’s amazing presence and His sense of humor.

His Word is sweet. His power is real. His voice is near. I am good and all is right again.

A few of my relatives and close friends have heard the news!

I spent a few months writing the sequel to God in Sandals last year, just after my 4th visit to Israel. Oh, it was all in God’s plan that I’d write again….little did I know when I made the plans for my trip to those historical, sacred places I described in the book. I left Israel revved up and ready to embark on the story of the first century church. I wanted to write about the very beginnings … the fellowship of believers in Jerusalem who witnessed seeing Jesus and becoming His ambassadors of the Kingdom. And, my story starts with non-believers: Jesus’ own brothers. The book literally unfolded as I wrote.

Here’s the background story of the why I wrote His Kingdom Come.

What was it like for Jesus’ closest friends, relatives, and disciples when he conferred the Kingdom of Heaven into their hands? What was it like to have intimately known the Lord on human terms, to have known him while he walked beside them, to then suddenly discover what it meant to know Jesus INSIDE of themselves? What might this pivotal moment in history been like?

The beginning of Christianity looked different than it does today. Most of the believers were Jewish and they understood Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah. Jesus was, to those who followed him, the hope of their nation and the Light of the world. However, the Kingdom Jesus ushered in didn’t look the way anyone expected and yet the Scripture foretold, in uncanny detail, all that Jesus fulfilled in his life. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the Son of Israel; the roots of our faith are Jewish and God’s deep love is most wondrously revealed when we understand the degree and extravagant way God came to us.

Even though most Christians have heard the story of the beginnings of the church countless times, I don’t think there is another book like this one. I set out to make it more true than fiction. I wanted to tell the story in a way that would be fresh and new–that would engage our hearts and minds as only stories can do. I set out to flesh out the historical characters who lived during this astounding time. I wanted to reawaken readers to the reality of what Jesus has done and is still doing for those he calls his own.

So, I’d like to invite you to come on a journey … come and see those extraordinary first few years when Jesus’ followers and enemies find themselves caught up in an amazing but difficult time of transition in the epic story of God’s redemption.

Here’s the link that will bring you to be able to read about the book and also a good portion of it for free….  http://www.freado.com/book/9056/his-kingdom-come-a-novel

Please pass the word. Word of mouth is the only way this book will be marketed. Thanks! The book is available in hardcover, softcover, and e-book formats. Barnes and Noble online has the cheapest prices right now.

Oh, guess what? It snowed in Charlotte this week. Here’s a photo of my grandson and me and our snowman. He only lived one day and then melted.

He only lasted one day!

Margaret

HIS KINGDOM COME: A Novel

His Kingdom Come: A Novel

Click on the book cover for a “look inside” preview of this new story!

WestBow Press released HIS KINGDOM COME live on the Internet just before Christmas. I received the author’s review copy the third week of December. What a gift! This is so exciting. I pray you’ll enjoy this book’s  “look inside” feature and then, if you like what you’ve seen, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE  pass on this widget (the http link below) to everyone you know … it’s really such good news!

TO HELP THE CAUSE ….

Here’s the “link code” to the Book Marketing/Review widget. http://freado.com/book/9056/his-kingdom-come-a-novel

Copy and paste it into your email, your own blogs, your facebook page — anywhere you can!

Thanks so much my dearest friends!

Margaret

What Most Pleases Jesus – for Lovers of God

A few days ago while I was praying, the Lord showed me something that still has me thinking and rejoicing. I felt desperate for Heaven—wanted to see Jesus—you know, that passion that rises up in His beloveds sometimes because we have the “gift” from the Holy Spirit that causes us to desire Him so much.

This desire for Heaven is not because I am ready to die because I am old, even though I’ve lived for 61 years. Most of the time I feel more like about 25 or so on the inside. My 81 year old mother says she feels the same way. Our souls simply do not age, do they? They are young. I suppose it is because God didn’t design us to die when He created humankind to start with. Since we live in a state of fallenness—and have since the days of Eden, our bodies eventually die but our true selves (our mind, heart, soul, and spirit) are eternal—made in God’s image. My desire was for Jesus. In this life, we must die to attain that reward.

I prayed: Let me put on the heavenly body… let me be like You and be with You!

Of course, it would be great if He’d come here—I’d rather not have to die. I asked Him why it must be like this… Why can’t I see You when it is all I really want? Why does it have to be this way—that we can’t see You until we get to Heaven?

I told the Lord that I long to know Him like I would know anyone whom I love this much … to intimately know Him … His mannerisms … to recognize the crack in His voice when He speaks… the tone of His voice … the sound of it. What does His laugh sound like? To know how His eyes narrow or light up in certain situations … to be able to recognize Him from the back from a distance just by the way He walks. I know these are human desires for a “human” Jesus. Just the same, I want to know Him like that. I want to really know Him in the now—in reality. I realize if I want to see him as He is now—in His glory—I’d need to leave this planet and this body.

Here’s what thoughts came to me from the Lord: One day you will have all you wish for and much more than you can imagine. For now, I will tell you something. I am most pleased when I am loved and desired by faith—sight unseen. When I experience your love by such faith, my heart swells full. These days you live by faith, they will pass by fast. These days are short and will seem like nothing to you one day. For now, I am pleased, so pleased by your faith. It really affects me—you can’t imagine how much.

In this listening prayer experience, I felt His feelings too—which was powerful; undescribable really. I know this much: Faith and Christianity wasn’t meant to be a belief system, or an organization with moral codes and traditions to keep, which is what some people think and experience. It’s not what the Lord wants.
I rather think He set out for one thing: to sweep us off of our feet. Faith was meant to be a love affair. I wonder what Heaven will be like—well, it will be Heaven because we’ll be with Him. Really, I can hardly wait.

By the way, I sent HIS KINGDOM COME to the publisher WestBow Press. I’ll let you know when it’s available—possibly in a few weeks. I’ve posted the first 11 chapters (out of 52 chapters) on my web site. Feel free to pass it along to others — it can be downloaded and attached to email because the excerpt is in a pdf file. Send me an email (link is on my web site http://www.margaretmontreuil.com )if you have any difficulty.

It will help the cause of spreading this bit of Kingdom News in telling others about the new novel. Enjoy!

Divine Loving Mystery – for Lovers of God

Looking for something in an old box stored away, I came across a few prayer journals. I started looking through them. One from November 1996, made me smile. I don’t usually do this, but I thought I’d share what I just read from it, a prayer/poem I wrote to the Lord fourteen years ago.

***

Thinking about how God called Himself “I AM.” God’s name for Himself seems to me like an unfinished statement. “I Am”… What? I desire to know Him truly and entirely for who He is. Jesus of the Gospels is in glory. I can’t see Him as He really is. Not yet. So, I must become intimately comfortable with Mystery. His intimate presence is real and I want to know Him for real — but can I? How? He remains so much of a mystery.

He is everywhere. He is within me. Yet He seems to be absent.

I think His language is less words and more action. When I settle comfortably into Mystery, am I really with Him? Am I “In heavenly places, seated with Christ Jesus?” What an amazing mystery is that?

He is Divine Loving Mystery. Yet, He has revealed Himself to me through Creation, the life of Jesus, the Bible, and His involvement in my life.
I long to know Him more.

Divine Loving Mystery,
Oh, how I long for You
Are your eyes sky blue?
Are they clear and deep loving pools?
Your face is mystery.

What about your voice — for true?
What gentle, soothing sound floats downstream of Your loving heart
Carried by tone and inflections?
I know in hearing them, I’d know You
Sometimes silent in strength You speak, yes, this too
I long for the human melody of Your mouth
Even if it’s scolding firmness to hold me close
And is there a voice not human in sound
That would roar or thunder more appropriate speech?
Your voice is mystery.

And, what of your gait when You walk?
Oh, what I’d give to watch you along Your way!
How does one follow in Your shadow today?
Passing among people, intent with purpose, You’d go
Sometimes are your shoulders bent?
Or, do You always carry the world with ease?
Straight and held back – confident and able?
Is Your stride determined?

Sometimes when You are passing, do You linger and watch?
Are our troubles too painful that You must stop to stare?
Do you reach out and touch and care?
Because of our choices do You steadily press on?
Have you ever even run?
How do You walk among us, Divine Loving Mystery?

And, what would I do, if suddenly here You stood?
Before me, everything I ever wanted or dreamed; yet beyond all, You’d be
Oh, Divine Loving Mystery, I know I’d be undone
So, really, I’m afraid for You to come
I’ll wait then, until it is time, both content and longing for You,
Divine Loving Mystery, I love You.
***

A while ago, I pondered how Moses asked God, at the site of the “burning bush” what His name was, so he could tell his people in Egypt who was sending him to deliver them from bondage. Well, God’s answer was “I AM” – meaning “I Exist”…

We all have names because somebody named us. Nobody named God because He always existed. I’ve wondered if it was that simple. With God, things are at once simple and complex. After all, how can we wrap our minds around the fact that He always existed? That’s mystery too.

He’s Affected Her That Way—for Lovers of God

Since the middle of June, my new job has consumed my energy and focus for more than forty hours each week. But to relax in the evenings, and for a few hours on weekends, I have escaped into a few novels, not ones I’d ordinarily have chosen. I blame my two grown daughters who became enamored by Edward, an unorthodox kind of hero in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. Because their enthusiasm convinced me this love story about vampires and werewolves might be worth reading, I took the plunge. It went against my better judgment, spiritually speaking, but I had to find out what all the fuss was about. Why were so many women, including friends my age, so taken up and enamored by this tale? What did the author hit on that caused a fury in book sales and a series of movies that filmmakers speedily cranked out to meet her readers’ appetite for more?

I see it now. Edward is in love with Isabella and is selfless in his love. He is so supernaturally strong that he could crush her by his love for her. He wants her more than his own life and wellbeing. He is old-fashioned and pure when it comes to morals, even though he’s a vampire. Not your run-of-the-mill fiend, he denies himself all human blood even though it is what he craves. And she becomes his victim in that she can’t resist him, and all he is. Once she’s experienced his closeness, she can’t live without him and be whole. He’s affected her that way. She’s addicted to the drug of his presence, and the more she has of him, the more she wants.

Oh, dear, I believe God can use the most surprising ways to sneak up on us to give us a glimpse of his kind of love. I doubt Ms. Meyers realized she was writing an allegory about God’s everlasting, selfless love—about His character. Our hearts and souls are designed for that kind of love—the love that sacrifices one’s own desires for that of the other.

We go to work and do what we need to do to survive—to be able to pay our bills. We find ourselves in a world that is opposed to what our heart wants most, because we were made for eternity and spiritual fulfillment. Our hearts want so much more—we want to experience the romance we were created for—and so we have books, movies, and our imaginations to take us there. Well, I sat for a long while this morning talking to the Lord about Edward. I believe He told me something quite beautiful. “Every day, I am patiently waiting for you to ‘wake up’, just like Edward waited for Bella. Sometimes you sleep for a few hours, sometimes for months, and even for years.” He’s always with us, waiting. We just need to realize it. Like Edward, he doesn’t sleep, but watches us. He waits for us. He protects us. He cares only about our happiness.

I know it is unseemly to write about vampires and werewolves—about a secular and worldly book series on a blog about God’s love. Well, I believe God sneaks up on unsuspecting souls to give them a glimpse of what we’ve been made for: His love and the gift of Himself.

Margaret
www.margaretmontreuil.com – OneHeart Publications