Journey into Lightl

“I was glad as I entered Grandma’s house. I began to relax as I realized that I was in a safe place. There was no “Evil Eyeball” roaming around ready to inflict pain on me. They were just real people who genuinely liked and respected me for who I really was. I felt relaxed because it was easy being me.

“So, I began to look inside myself at what I wanted to do. I felt safe when Grandma looked at me. I felt like she liked me and loved me and she always would, even if I was flawed. She didn’t stare, frown, poke at, threaten or push me. She just looked at me and smiled and enjoyed what she saw.

“She put no pressure on me. I felt it was okay to do whatever I wanted, as long as it was not really bad. She had few rules and trusted me enough not to even tell me what they were. She didn’t seem to be trying to make me different. I felt like she thought it was okay for me to be just who I was.”

These were excerpts from my journal entry dated January 14, 2010. I was on an extended retreat and recalling what it was like in my Grandma’s house as a child. I realized that God was using these memories and my imagination to teach me what it was like to live with him in a loving relationship.

God does not criticize. He does not condemn (Romans 8:1). Jesus has already taken the punishment for our sins and flaws. Instead, he tells us, “You are precious, you are honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4).

Again, God does not punish us. He does not try to make us a different person from who he made us to be.

However, he does train us to be more like him in character. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). We need to be more like him to better experience his love and grace towards us (Ephesians 3:17-19).

God relates to us through eyes of love and grace. My Grandma’s love and grace towards me as a small child helped me to understand and experience God’s love and grace. This love and grace includes “bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Ask God to show you where he has given you an experience of his love and grace. Ask him to use your memories and imagination, and spend some time re-experiencing God’s love and grace towards you in that scene(s). Then, write in your journal what your thoughts and feelings were.