Five Minute Friday: beauty

He’s up before the sun, a snuggly body in footie pajamas beside me on the couch, and somehow I’m singing him a personalized version of “You Are my Sunshine,” ending with the sentiment that he’ll be mine always. And he echoes “always” at the end, and insists that I sing it “‘gin! ‘gin!” So I do. And he leans his head over onto the 40-weeks bump that is his baby brother, and looks up into my face while I sing to him that he is mine, and I don’t know how it could get any sweeter than this.

But soon — really and truly any day now — I’ll be singing over two of them, and how will my heart hold the love then? It won’t, will it? Properly proportioned love is never contained in hearts; it spills out perpetually, in smiles, and service, and gifts, and snuggles, and tears, and songs.

And this joy of mine? Only a shadow, a dim reflection, a taste of the love of God. We have joy in belonging to Him, as my boy takes joy in being mine, but the joy of the God to whom we belong is far greater than ours.

This is the God “who will rejoice over you with gladness; [the God who] will quiet you by his love; [who] will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

The “always” of which I sing to my son is bound by time, by my three-score and ten year allotment, but not so the love of God. When scripture says that His “steadfast love endures forever” (2 Chron. 7:3), it means forever. Beyond what we can count or measure, even theoretically, beyond and before time itself is the love of God.

He sings over us now; one day — soon, by any measure, when set against eternity — we’ll hear His song of exultation. That day will be a good day, indeed.

Linking up with the Five Minute Friday crew to write on today’s prompt: beauty. The button above will take you to the link-up where you can read all about it and see what others have written.

©2018 by Stacy Crouch