Behind Infinity

It’s an amazing feeling to be loved lavishly by someone, particularly a lover, but also by a family member or friend. Throughout my life I’ve been blessed to have a few different people who were (are) absolutely astounding and extravagant and never, ever begrudging in the way they have loved (love) me with both “tangible” gifts and the even more precious gift of time spent together. Of course, there’s a difference between someone’s ostentatious show of their wealth and attempts at buying your loyalty (for whatever reason) and their truly loving you and desiring to give you your heart’s desire, to see you happy, no matter what it costs them or what sacrifices they have to make. And I’m talking about the latter circumstance. I’d say that the knowledge that you are loved in this way is truly one of the most precious and wondrous feelings in the world.

Such passionate, unselfish, lavish love is a hard–if not entirely impossible–thing to come by in human relationships. All we do is tainted by sin, so that even in those relationships where I am loving best, I am still loving selfishly. Even those I love most, I love imperfectly. That’s really disheartening to realize, considering my affinity for perfection!

But when I’m faced with my imperfection in this (as in all other areas) I’m all the more amazed at the love I am a recipient of in my earthly relationships, but even more, in my heavenly one.

1 John 3:1-3
“1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

Ephesians 1:4-10
“4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

Jesus, my Perfect Eternal Lover, is a lavish lover, whose love is even more astounding then that accorded me by other people. He has given me redemption and forgiveness in accordance with his riches. In his lavish love he gave me his life, that I may be called the child of God.

In his love, he gives me everything I need with all wisdom and understanding. His love isn’t that of a blind lover, obsessed with the beloved, looking to please the beloved by any and all means possible. Rather, Jesus’ love is the perfect all-wise love of an omniscient lover. Everything he has done, will do, has given, and will give me is perfectly calculated for only my good and His glory. No matter how circumstances may seem right now–beautiful and good or painful and seemingly senseless–each gift and each trial is lavished on me as a means to my sanctification.

Such is the promise in I John 3:2. Someday, “when the times have reached their fulfillment” (Eph) I will finally be made complete and whole by means of his transforming love. In that day, I will “be like him” (I John) and best of all, I shall see Him as he is.

Someday, I’ll finally get to truly meet and see and touch this lavish lover of mine. It’s probably no secret to those who know me that I eagerly await the time when I’ll get to have a lavish earthly lover, and in turn, love him lavishly as well. But truly, the expectation I feel for that day pales in comparison to the eagerness with which I desire to see Jesus and be wholly purified in him.
I absolutely cannot wait–Lord Jesus, Come Quickly!

Good show, good evening, good friend.
Don’t believe me? Will it help if I make it bigger?

Friend.

Tonight Aaron fed me the best chicken salad I have ever had for dinner and then we went to the Nickel Creek concert at the Calvin College FAC. I’m pretty sure that was one of the best shows (possibly the best) I’ve ever seen. Chris Thile is amazing on the mandolin. Makes me want to go out and buy one. But at the same time I know I could never ever in a million years be as good as he is. So that would be silly. If I really want to do bluegrass, I ought to just suck it up and become a better fiddler. But all that aside. I especially enjoyed the “House of Tom Bombadil” medley, but it was all fan-flipping-tastic. I only wish they would have played my favorite, “Out of the Woods”. But alas.

I rollercoaster for you
time out of mind must be heavenly

I have two great quotes from today.

The first comes from Aaron, as I gathered my things after the concert at the Leffingwell Asylum. There was a muffled thumping coming from the other room, to which housemate P. had retreated to only moments before. Upon hearing the thumping, Aaron rolled his eyes. “That’s P., fluffing his pillow.” I started to laugh incredulously. “It’s true,” he continued. “You look at the label on your pillow, it says to fluff it. So of course, P. follows the instructions. But instead of fluffing, he assaults the pillow. What he doesn’t understand is that there are different degrees of fluffage.”

Degrees of fluffage. I like it.

The second quote comes from Brycen. “Brittany, looked at my pimple. That’s cheating!”

I give no context for that one, because even with context, it wouldn’t really make much more sense. It’s just funny because of the sheer absurdity of it, don’t you think?

As I savored a spoonful of ice cream just now, I realized that Aaron’s chicken salad definitely wins the “healthiest food I’ve had all day” award. The rest of the day I had Lucky Charms, Fig Newtons, a handful of M&Ms, and a Nutri-Grain bar. And now this ice cream.
Excuse me while I go barf.

While we’re making lists, let’s list the places I’ve been today (counting those I passed through):
Dorr, Byron Center, Cutlerville, Jenison, Allendale, Grandville, Hudsonville, Borculo, Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, and probably another little town or two I can’t remember.
The sad thing is, this sort of obscene amount of travel is normal for me.

I’m spewing nonsense now. Time for some LATIN! w00t

Having lived “out here in the middle of nowhere” (which really isn’t) for just over a month now, it’s been necessary several times for me to give people directions to my house. They end up sounding like, “After you hit the gravel road, you’ll pass a really smelly farm, and then a nice tidy farm, and turn at the first stop sign, it doesn’t have a street sign because somebody knocked it off I guess, and count X driveways, and look for a bunch of mailboxes and a driveway at the top of a hill, and turn there.” Giving country directions is worse than your average girl’s directions. It’s all sketchy landmarks, subject to interpretation–no street names, no blocks to measure. It kind of drives me crazy, because unlike most girls I know, who prefer the landmark method, I like giving and receiving precise navigational information which includes street names, NSEW directions, and if possible, exact mileages. Being unable to furnish such information is somewhat frustrating, so today, when I had to give directions to a new violin student’s mother, it was such a relief to find out that she lives only a couple of miles away. As I struggled to figure out how many driveways it would be from hers to mine, and what color barns she should look for, she asked, “Wait–are you the big yellow house that just went in?” “Yes!” I exclaimed gleefully. She knows my language.

I found this picture last night in a book. It made me laugh. It was taken at sewing class, after I had finished my first project (a bag to put my sewing supplies in), circa age 10. It’s plain to see that even back then, I was nothing but an adorable little nerd.

In other news, my face totally broke out in a bazillion trillion nasty whiteheads today. I look like a smarmy little 15-year-old. It’s absolutely the most annoying thing ever.