"...with lovingkindness have I drawn thee..."

"…if I could build a causeway,
I'd build it to your door;
step by step and stone by stone
'til we're apart no more…"
- Daithi Rua

This hauntingly beautiful version of Daithi Rua's song, "Causeway," is the last track on Randall Williams' new CD Praying for Land.  It has been playing through my heart for the last week.  I even found myself cueing it up, over and over again, as I worked in the kitchen, watered the herbs, or dusted.   Another lovely line from the last verse says:

"If in Scandanavia, it was you I found
…I'd take you in my giant's hands
and hold you all the night…"

I don't know what Irish folksinger/songwriter, Daithi Rua's muse, or motivation, was in writing this beautiful song, but this week it spoke to me of God's love…of God's desire to come to us and draw us to Him…to "take us in His giant's hands and hold us all the night".

This is what is filling my heart this week.  The Father's love for His child…His children.  His desire for a relationship with us that draws us to Him…to His "kingdom of heaven" that is within each of us…infinitely near.

My study of Scripture this week includes the statement from Jeremiah,

"Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:
therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

Over the years this Bible verse has evolved and expanded for me.  I have often found myself praying with it in moments of hunger, when the longing for a greater understanding of my relationship to God and His love for me…and mine and all…presses me to dig deeper, go farther with His message than just a passing consideration of its profound promise.

My earliest "Aha!" about this passage came to me as an artist.  I had been thinking of myself as overweight, making careless errors and taking less than graceful steps as I moved forward in life. It was about this time that I was again led to consider this verse, but this time I loved thinking about God as The Artist, drawing my life with a spiritual pencil.  That His hand was true and that He loved His subject.  I was drawn beautifully, accurately, carefully by my Father who was the greatest artist in the universe.

Then there was the time when I thought my life was without meaning.  I just wanted to know what God wanted from me.  I felt directionless and scattered.  I prayed that He would tell me what He had created me to be.  Was I a scholar, a healer, a school teacher, a publisher, an artist, a lawyer, a mom, a wife, a poet, a writer…I thought that if He would just tell me what I should focus on I could finally get some traction and be something.

Again this verse came to thought and yet this time the mental picture was of The Great Cellist.  I was His instrument and he was drawing His great bow across my strings.  Drawing chords of creativity one moment, and chords of contemplative silence, a love for the law, or a desire to write, read, nurture, sing…the next.  As an instrument I had a full set of strings.  Every chord, note, rest, and crescendo found in a symphony, folk song, or rock opera could be drawn from the body of my completeness.  I only had to be…to be ready…The Great Cellist would keep me "in tune" and He would draw from me, with His bow, the music he needed each and every moment.

Another time I was feeling overwhelmed, depleted as a wife, mother, housekeeper, friend and professional.  And again it was this verse that came to sustain me.  Only this time I was water and the Great Mother was drawing a bath for Her children.  I came from an infinite reservoir of affluence…a rushing river of clear, pure, sparkling gifts…every drop of me was complete.  Every drop was H2O (or in my case, the full reflection of Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life Truth and Love…PMSSLTL to the infinite!)…nothing more, nothing less. God was drawing me from the deep well of divine refreshment, purity, nourishment, sustenance, and buoyancy.  The minute he turned the spigot I flowed fully and freely without fear of depletion.  And He was always, and only, ever drawing me with loving kindness…never in a way that would leave the silt of martyred exhaustion, a false nobility, or a self-conscious need for acknowledgment or appreciation.

But this week, when this verse came to me again…set to the music of Randall's final cut, Causeway, I heard it yet in a different way. 

This time I was His daughter and He was the Perfect Father.  He was drawing me to Him.  He was walking towards me and putting His arm around my shoulder and pulling me into His strong embrace.  I was home.  As I pondered and felt this truth, I let myself surrender to that embrace.  Dissolving into the warmth of His strong arms where I could hear His heartbeat setting the cadence of my life.  Slowing my maddening rush with its constant, rhythmic "I AM", stilling all demanding, silencing all concern, drowning out the voices that would tell me I am a wayfaring stranger rather than a beloved daughter, a princess in the Kingdom of my Father.

Thank you Abba,
Kate