gift on a doorstep

A gift arrived on my doorstep this week... an unexpected, beautiful gift.  Given my story and the places where these shoes have walked, the gift was about as close to perfect as you could get.  I could almost see the Maker of this girl and the Giver of this gift smiling from his one big ear to the other.

So I sat with this gift... all week I sat with it.  And I talked with the Giver, "is this really for me?  really?"  And the Giver just opened His big arms - "enjoy, beth."  And I have...

Sometimes, on this side of eternity, it surprises me that a heart can feel so full, after having felt so empty.  I guess that's part of our experience here - full and empty, sometimes coming almost side by side.  But lately, it's been full, a blessed full.  And I have enjoyed it.

But it's strange - along with such fullness comes a nagging sense of NOT-fullness.  A gift so perfect, but yet, a sense that it's just NOT.  Perfection that does not exist here, in this world.

And I don't like that.  I want to know fullness... complete fullness, with NO empty.  I want wholeness, completeness, fullness of joy.  I want NOW the things that were promised to me for THEN.  How I want to hold these things now... how I wish I could see His face now.

But I can't.  And here's what He's been telling me about that this week.  This ache, this groaning, is really a promise.  It's His promise to me.  The fullness is coming.  He is coming.  One day, He will scoop me up in His big arms... I imagine that we'll dance and I'll dance well... and there will be nothing - nothing - to get in the way.  No separation.  Absolute fullness.  Fullness of joy.  Wholeness of life.  Completeness of everything as it was always meant to be.  How I long for that day... I can feel my heart jump in me at the thought of it.  I know I was meant for it.

Then.  I was meant for it - THEN.  Not now.  I have not been promised fullness now.  I was promised beauty, life, good gifts, oodles of love - but I was never promised fullness, perfection.  It is just not here - not yet.

Not yet.  What a strange relief this is to me.  No need to try to force fullness now - because it is coming.  He is coming.  He is coming for me.  And in the meantime, I groan and I wait - I wait with a blessed ache that knows with full assurance WHO I am waiting for.  I don't wait for an unknown thing - no.  I wait for Someone that I do know - as through a glass darkly, I know Him.  And I wait with Hope because when He comes, I will know Him fully, as He is, even as I am fully known.  Blessed waiting, blessed God who sustains this waiting girl with His own presence and the gifts that He leaves on this doorstep along the way.  

we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved... 

~romans 8

you have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

~ephesians 1