Wonderful: More than Life

"For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth."

- Psalm 139:13-15

About 25 years ago, my mother typed up a "Living Legacy," which lays out some of her worldview, her faith, her hopes and concerns, and more. I had forgotten that this treasure existed until my brother emailed it out to me and my sisters shortly after Mom passed into glory last year.

"I love you more than life itself." That's how she starts. A message for her kids and grandkids. I share it here as Gospel, as an echo through her of God's essential care for every creature, for all that exists. For all of us, that you and I might affirm for each other the wonderfulness of our making.

I hadn't thought deeply about that phrase, "I love you more than life itself," until my mother moved beyond this life, and my father followed her seven months later. Now, I hear in it an unlocked truth that love has no limits. Not even those dates of a lifetime that we literally etch in stone can circumscribe the irrepressible love that some of us refer to as God. We live beyond our years in a body, vessels of a dynamic grace that will not be snuffed by Alzheimer's, cancer, or any heartbreaking tragedy.

"I know, without question, that when each of you were conceived, the Holy Spirit was inserted into your soul in the same way as genes were passed," writes my mother. "You are all bound for lives of glory in some sort of service to our Lord." Forgiveness is another name for this interwoven wonderfulness, delivered and delivering us into better ways than some of our tendencies might favor. 

This Love-Spirit can feel shockingly intimate, even feeling intricately woven and secretly so. Mysteriously, it at the same time powers and compels us into bearing grace forth. We may struggle to hold this truth, so it is good to be reminded by mothers and Psalm writers and others.  Better still, may we practice it through overdue phone calls and letters to global leaders and countless other ways that celebrate the boundless nature of love as wonderful.