Impossible

Ian and I have been busy… at work, at church, at home. We even seem busy in our sleep. What with the end of the fiscal year, a new season of teaching bible study and Sunday school, not to mention planning all the details of our first visit to meet our new little son, we are definitely burning the candle at both ends – perhaps in the center too, just for good measure.

But in the middle of the busy, busy, busy, I stop. I stop and find peace. I stop and give thanks. I stop and linger in the embrace of the One who makes the impossible possible.

The impossible…

Yes, I am talking about our adoption… and so much more.

I am talking about how He transformed a sad, silent little girl into vibrant and powerful woman (me!).

How He takes broken bodies and minds that are beyond a doctor’s help and makes them brand new (also me!)

How He loved the world so much, that He gave His own Son to death that we could have life.

Impossible love.

God defines love differently than we do.  Our definition of love is a deep feeling of devotion and adoration. And yes, that is awesome… but not impossible. Even evil people can love that way.

But impossible love is on a much bigger scale. It is more than a feeling – it’s an action plan that started before all time began. It involved thousands upon thousands of years to work it out, billions of people, and the most crushing loss ever – the death of the invincible on behalf of the fallible.

The goal? Simply to give me the most awesome existence ever– to make me the most Melanie-est Melanie ever in the best way possible. Take that goal and multiply it by billons. To somehow give everyone who has ever lived exactly what they need to be the most joyful, most awesome, most incredible version of themselves ever. 

“Impossible”, you say. “You can’t please all the people all the time.”

Someone did. God figured out a way to do it. There was only one way to do this and He found it. A way wherein everyone gets to win and everyone gets the prize.

“I don’t know”, you say, “I definitely don’t have the most wonderful existence ever. I am hot and bothered, I suffer and everything really is horrible. And I know I am not the only one… it seems this plan is failing.”

This plan is not done yet. We are not done yet. We don’t get to see the final end anymore than cake batter gets to see the wedding cake it becomes. Right now we are oozy, unformed versions of ourselves. But God is working out His plan in us – in our neighbors, in the guy on the street corner, in that obnoxious co-worker.  We are not done yet. We need a little heat, a little discomfort and maybe even searing pain to form us into that miraculous wedding cake version of ourselves. It’s yucky. It feels unfair. But in the end we will have our cake and eat it too.

We don’t know what is best for us… we try, we fail, and sometimes we succeed, but even our success is only a shadow of the success He has planned for us. We see glimpses of what is to come, but we don’t see it fully. Yes, it is a matter of belief and trust, but I have seen enough glimpses to know that the reality which is to come is good beyond my wildest of dreams. At the end of the plan, when it all comes together, we are left with impossible perfection.

This is what love means to Him. At all costs, even the highest cost, he arranged for each of us to have a happy ending – the best happy ending possible… which will turn out to be just the beginning of eternity.

My life has been hard. Ian’s life has been hard. My little son across the ocean, who has barely experienced any of his life – his life has been hard.

When life is impossibly busy, when life is impossibly hard… when I am going crazy with sorrow… crazy with fear… I stop and find peace. I stop and give thanks. I stop and linger in the embrace of the One who makes the impossible possible through His impossible love.