For Better or For Worse

The stage is set. Its 2:30am and my child is currently calm after her 2 hour night-waking escapade. I’m waiting in the living room to see if she will wake herself up again. I’m curled up under a blanket, warm and soft, and the world is quiet.

Then it comes, the warm feeling stretching up from the soles of my feet; This Holy ground transforming me from the ground up. I close my eyes and feel my feet in cool water as another wave sloshes past me. I smell the fresh sea breeze that fills my lungs with deeper breaths than I had known. I hear waves and gulls. I’m balling up my dress in my hands to keep the hem from being soaked, but as it pools around my shins I don’t seem to care when a gentle wave plays with it.

Then I hear a voice behind me that’s as sure as the rising sun and as familiar as Home.
“The surf is washing your feet.”

I open my eyes and turn, my heart-thrilling at the sight of my Love only a few feet away. I want to run to Him, but I remember the obscurity that has been our relationship in the last couple weeks. What has changed in that time? I walk slowly.

He must have seen all of that spelled across my face, for He goes on to say, “For one who is clean needs only their feet washed. And you are clean.”

“I’m so sorry it has been different recently. I’ve missed You. I’ve missed out on You. I don’t know if different is okay and I’m so sorry.”

He throws me that familiar smile, the one that already knows my heart so fully that my words to Him are insufficient but He loves them anyway.
“You are okay, My love.” He gets down on His knees in front of my and holds my hands in His as He stares through my eyes. “Kyra Hinton, will you promise me to trust that I love you?”

I ponder this for a little bit, weighing His words.
“I think I can do that,” I say with a grin and twinkling eyes.

“Then Kyra, will you marry me?”

“Of course!”

He jumps up in one motion and twirls me around. When we stop He looks me in the eyes and says, “They’re throwing a party for us.”

I look at Him with my eyebrow raised in question, but He just grins, grabs my hand, and starts leading me along, running the streets that wind through the Kingdom. We end up in a courtyard plaza that is oh, so familiar. The bistro tables are arranged in a group and are filled with those who are known by the Father and Son and love them, and thus love me too. But my gaze is instantly on the Perfect One, the Father, surrounded in brilliant light that is yet not too bright to gaze on. His appearance is like fire, yet I am not consumed. I’ve never seen Him outside of the throne room.

And now we’re sitting together at a table surrounded by happy talk and laughter. The Father’s arm is around me as I lean against Him and listen to the easy conversation that passes between Him and the Son. Then the Son, my beloved one, turns to address me, “Kyra, the reason the last few weeks have been different is that you needed something only a father can give you — the permission and joy in being a child. You needed a safe near presence as you played and discovered yourself and the world around you in those new child-like eyes. You’re different now, do you see it? Your relationship with your daughter, the way you are easy to rest, the enjoyment you take in the little things, and the satisfaction you get when you can make something ‘good’ and bask in the Father’s smile of approval.. those are all things you couldn’t do before. Our bistro table conversations were great, they were what you needed at the time,  but they were full of grown-up talk. What you’ve needed is permission to play, and for a father to play with you. To anyone but Him you wouldn’t have allowed yourself that permission, but in the peace of His presence you did. There is a difference in our roles, the roles of Rabboni and Daddy. Because you need different things at different times, your relationship with Us might change and flux, but we do not change. We enjoy every stage with you as they come.”
He waited to see if that made sense to me, which it did, and then He went on, “I know my proposal tonight was confusing for you. You already are the Bride of Christ, and you are anxiously awaiting that great Wedding Day here when all has been made right. This proposal was of a different sort of symbolism. Last year you signed on to Me ‘for better or for worse,’ and you meant it. You wanted to be with Me in My mourning and My rejoicing, in My grief and in My joy. Whatever My heart felt, you agreed to feel it with Me even when it broke. You set aside all the defense mechanisms that held you back from loving the people I love, and hurting when they hurt Me. You’re seeing the fruition of that now, of loving so freely that it seems to be pouring out of your own heart, even though you know it originated in Mine. But Kyra, there was something you didn’t understand back then. If you say ‘for better or for worse,’ I say it too. I want to be with you in everything you feel, anywhere you are, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death brings you Home. I do. So even when you don’t understand where you’re at, when you just need to be quiet and paint, or go for a walk alone, I am for you. I am in it with you because I chose you, and I choose you in the good times, in the bad ones, and in the obscure ones. Don’t let insecurity arise in you regarding My heart for you. Know it is steadfast and secure, and thus, you can be too.”

That truth found a place in my mind to nestle down in, and I welcomed it.

The night went on and the shadows grew long. Soon they both realized I needed rest. My Love picked me up and carried me along, and I rested against the steady beat of His heart. He laid me down in my bed, kissed me on the forehead, and left. Then the Father came in, which again, I have never seen Him be so near before. I scooted over to give Him room and He graciously smiled as He sat down on the bed beside me. Peace overcame my soul and my eyelids slowly closed. I fell asleep to the songs the Father sings over us, feeling each note deep in the fund of my soul as they were bringing dead things back to life.

My last conscious thought was the recognition of a smell:
a smell of fresh beginnings and Home,

yet somehow it was also the smell my living room.