A Messy Love: Transformation At the Fringe

Oh dear ones, welcome back. Our house has been a place of chaos and craziness. In the midst of a lot of calamity, I have spent time resting in the presence of the Father, and reflecting. But rest comes to an end and God has poured out His love and it is overflowing. God is good, y’all. God is good.

A wave of sickness hit our household about a month ago. It started with my littlest one, and within days, the oldest was sick. Cool, I thought. We should be through this quickly. This bug will move on in a week. 

Oh, how simple things seem when we think we can see the future.

As fate would have it, the two had different bugs (the joys of multiple schools). As the days passed, the kids seemed to get one bug and then the other. Then it morphed into some superbug. One by one, the kids got worse. The first was my littlest...a temperature of almost 104 and not responding to tylenol and ibuprofen...off to the ER we went (doctor’s orders). Diagnosis: Kidney Infection. Next up the bookends...my first and third. Upper respiratory infection and ear infection for both. Kiddo number two rounded out the month of yuck with bronchitis and pink eye. And Dad and Mom both landed on antibiotics for pneumonia (me to start, him to finish). Within a month, we had four sick littles camped out in our living room, timers set for medications, make-up homework, and a weary Mama. If lysol fumigated houses, I would invite them over. Red carpet and all.

So here I sit. Four littles, finally moving towards wellness. We have rested and healed. Praise God for modern medicine.

There was a time when a story like ours could (and would) have had a different outcome. Without albuterol, antibiotics, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and probiotics, these kids could have faced a totally different outcome. The pause between sick and better….summer and fall...between the heartbeats of life remind me that God’s limitless love and healing never ceases...and sometimes comes in a prescription bottle. 

God’s word is filled with stories of healing. And not the neat, simple, viral respiratory infections.

Stories of a blind man seeing through Him. Of a woman, ostracized, desperate, and bleeding...healed. Stories of freedom from the demons of the emotional and spiritual world. Of people walking after ages of paralysis, of children being restored to health.

His miracles were huge. Life changing. They were love, bursting at the seams...the kind that cannot be contained no matter how desperately you try.

Simply put, His miracles were loud, large, and messy.

Does that sound weird? Humor me for a second. When I think of miraculous love that I encounter daily, I think of my four daughters. If you see us, we are a rowdy, messy, chaotic bunch. There is no containing these four. They are big, messy love.

I think of the beauty of nature. Because I have the fortune of living in the Pacific Northwest, I am blessed with the ability to see mountains, valleys, deserts, oceans, lakes, rivers, and countryside...all in the same State. While God probably didn’t weigh in on drawing the state lines, His hand crafted this small patch of the universe with so much beauty that it literally spills out and cannot be contained.

He has promised us in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (ESV)

Dear one, God still moves. He still creates. Has never stopped healing. But before we can really dig into that, will you join me in exploring the stories of how Jesus transformed the lives of those at the fringe?

JSB

PS: Grab your journal page here!