With Age-Old Love
Many of you responded really positively to a piece of my journal that I posted not too long ago, where I reflected on a verse from Jeremiah.
I heard this bit of Scripture at a talk I went to, and I decided to reflect on it in prayer the next night.
I thought I would share the rest of that reflection (in italics), along with some other thoughts that I had as well (in normal print).
With age-old love I have loved you;
so I have kept my mercy toward you.
Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
virgin Israel;
Carrying your festive tambourines, you shall go forth dancing with merrymakers.
Jeremiah 31: 3b-4
"With age-old love I have loved you..." I keep repeating this verse again and again in the silence of my heart, trying to allow it to take root within me.
Here I very literally imagined myself carrying these words like seeds in my hands, and burying them in rich soil in the garden of my heart. I always picture my interior castle (as St. Teresa of Avila calls it) as a vast garden at the very center, with Christ as a fountain in the middle.
Since intimacy is so difficult for me, it's no wonder why this line sticks out to me.
While all lessor loves promise me much, they give so little, and only leave me empty. I deeply desire to be seen, to be known, and to be loved. Lessor loves can never fill that desire.
With age-old love, my gentle Savior has loved me, an He will always love me, even as He gives me His Most Sacred Heart, and I desert Him.
Here am I, the betrayer of His Heart, and even still the object of His love.
My God, what love is this! Don't You see, I have abandoned You!
I think about how quickly I have run away from those who hurt me. My heart is so frail, timid in the face of pain.
For example, my love language is physical touch. Anytime someone that I've been hurt by comes anywhere near me, my first instinct is to run, and to not let them anywhere near me.
And yet here is the Lord, my Greatest Love, placing His Heart in my hands, knowing full well that I have deserted Him, and very well may desert Him again.
What folly You've committed, dear Jesus... Don't only fools do this? Love where love may or may not be found?
Why do you love even the betrayer, my Greatest Love? Why do you love me?
"Again I will build you, and you shall stay built, virgin Isreal..."
And why do you call me virgin, my gentle Savior? I have lived like a harlot, finding myself with lessor loves in spite of You, seeking love while denying You, and then wondering why love can be found nowhere beside You.
You find me broken, desolate in the desert, and again You raise me up to see You. You ask me again if I will choose to love You -- my God! who could deny You?
I'll admit, at times I do allow God to build me up, but staying built is the hard part. I know that God can and will sustain me, but I'm so use to being in ruin that I want to resort to that.
We were not made to stay in ruin, my dear friends, we are made to be build anew in Christ Jesus.
Age-old love, I read again. And I still cannot fathom it.
Lord if only I knew the depths of Your love; I would never stray again.
While I'm here, I breathe You in, O Divine Prince who calls me His own. Still my hungry heart heart that's tasted Your flesh and been kissed by Your blood -- the God Whom Heaven and Earth cannot contain Present on my lips, O Lord, I am not worthy.
But now I dance with joy, for You have deemed me worthy.
O my God, what love is this...