Jesus, You are stretching me to be like You, stretching me into Love.
Your quiet voice asking me to stay soft, to breathe, not to accept the invitation into battle.
To see beneath the surface; to see fear beneath the greed, sadness beneath the anger. To see the imago dei, the face of God all over them, when all I want to do is cut them off, hurt them for hurting me, to discard them as bad and wrong.
The sharpness of their behaviour winds me and I stiffen instinctively because I never thought they would do this, would go this far. I brace myself, wanting to react with anger, push back and defend myself and my territory. To put up high walls with my safety protected on the other side.
But I also want to look like You, to look like my Dad.
You encourage me to soften, because hardness is never the way. To soften and allow myself to stretch around their anger, stretch around their fear and stretch around my own hurt.
Just like a woman uncomfortably stretches around the new life growing inside of her belly, You help me to expand and take it all inside me, to allow my heart to wrap around it and still see the person in front of me with Your fingerprints all over them. To allow Love to grow swollen and full inside my chest, spilling over the edges and the sides so that it begins to trickle into the space between us; slowly shifting the atmosphere, dissolving the anger and the hatred that’s just waiting for a righteous foothold to take root and grow.
Still, my heart feels tender with the bruising and the stretching; as You lead me to be transformed into Love, to see as You see, to move as You move; to let go of the things that would split my heart and allow hurt to harden into lead weight on my shoulders, that would slowly bow and cripple me over time. But Your closeness and Your comfort opens my heart, opens my fingers, because I know that You hold and care for these things so well as I let You take them. That You pick up my defence as I lay it down. Nothing is lost or forgotten with You. You’re always working it all around for my good, for my freedom. So I hide away with You as my shield, rest and let You tend to me.
And I can see how You were so transformed into Love, embodied Love so perfectly – that You stretched yourself around all the hurt, all the pain of the world and took it all inside Yourself on the cross. Love growing bigger and wider, more powerful and radiant as You did so without limit. And whilst doing this, You were able to tell the thief beside You that he would be with you that day in Paradise. You were able to still plead forgiveness for the observers who jeered and mocked you. There was no point when You stiffened, when You pushed away, no point when You allowed a divide to fall.
How little I know about Love when I look at You. How small my endeavor to just love the one person in front of me, when You stretched and loved across the divide between life and death, across allies and enemies, over the whole of time, without hesitation or self-regard. Just keep transforming me into Love, deepening and widening it inside of me, into all the creases and corners until You flood the spaces and nothing else remains, no darkness, only Love, only You.