I was gifted this 237-page treasury of words this Christmas. Already familiar with Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, I dove right in, surfacing only to eat, sleep, consider reviews, and occasionally, bathe.
A gathering of reviewers will tell of the emotional focus, the "unbiblical" relating of God-as-Lover, and the difficulty of following the literary stream of musings. While we as a family are painstakingly careful not to let theologically erring words glue to our hearts, this one couldn't be more spot on aligning with the truths of the most Ancient and Authoritative Word.
Yes, she emotes as King David did - pleading, crying, passionate wonderings ... but paired with a deep awareness of sin-prone feet.
Yes, she relates to Christ as her Bridegroom, Lover of her Soul, Orchestrator of Romance, and Wooer of our Hearts. Because. He. Is.
And yes, she takes you for a float down a winding stream of words ... that more-than-occasionally come to a halt as you chew on a poignant, Biblical truth, close the book, let your soul be stirred to awe at God Himself, and then with trepidation and delight, return again - only to be ushered back into a thought-world where God is always the hero over sin ... most especially yours. A thought-world where self-disclipline, submission, and adoration cannon help but manifest themselves in reverent gratitude over and over and over ... one thousand times to write, one thousand tongues to sing, and more.
Oh, how I have deeply understood, wept, rejoiced, been changed, awakened, and refreshed by this little book. It has caused me to head-dive into Scripture with a new voracious appetite to have eyes that really SEE this God I flesh-and-soul strive to properly adore. All of these things that I suspected about God gleaned from Scipture ... all of these "Jehovah"-however-I-need-You,-You-Are" notions ... they are penned in prose and poem to experience once more.
Following are some of the truths that stuck to me more-than-skin-deep. And of course, to the right ... accounts of His faithfulness number by number, day by day.
"An Emptier, Fuller Life ... Every gift is an attempt to fly from emptiness."
"I enter the world like every person enters the world: with clenched fists."
"No, God. No God."
"Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other."
"Do we ever think of this busted-up place as the result of us ingrates, unsatisfied, we who punctured it all with a bite?"
"But from that Garden beginning, God has had a different purpose for us. His intent, since He bent low and breathed His life into the dust of our lungs, since He kissed us into being..."
"He means to rename us - to return us to our true names, our truest selves."
"And yet since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God's had this wild secretive plan. He means to fill us with glory again. With glory and grace."
"I regret the words as soon as they leave me. they seem so un-Christian, so unaccepting - so No, God! I wish I could take them back, comb out their tangled madness, dress them in their calm Sunday best. But there they are, released and naked, raw and real, stripped of any theological cliche, my exposed, serrated howl to the throne room."
"That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave."
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