Anchor
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13: 12-13
Sea
The next newsletter was supposed to be titled Faith: The Key to a Fearless Life, but I am skipping ahead to love because I am in love! Lots of links in this piece so I really encourage you to sit with them and let them minister to you.
Today is the seventh Anniversary of my baptism, and although this could be seen as the ultimate confession of faith, the last seven years can best be summed up as falling in love with Jesus, my Savior, and my God.
On November 19, 2017, I took my vows in a Grunt Style shirt in the basement of a rented church in Atlanta’s West End. “Have you put your trust in the Lord Jesus as your personal savior?” John O. asked. I do. Do you promise, with His help, to walk with Him all the days of your life? I do.
These are the only vows I have taken. I’m still a single woman, but I got married to Christ that day and publicly confessed our union. I did not think it was possible to love Jesus any more than I loved Him then, but I do. Oh, I do.
I knew Him then, but I know Him better now. Our intimacy is ever unfolding, with the question He asks always being, “How deep do you want me to go?” If that sounds sorta sexual, I mean it to. Scripture compares our relationship with Christ to a relationship between a wife and her husband. It’s a relationship of His radical love and my radical consent.
When I realized Jesus loved me and that I loved Him back—nowhere near the amount that He loved me—I had to first get over the shame of not being a better lover, a better child of God, or a better partner. As I allowed Him to love me, somehow, He increased my soul’s capacity for love. Jesus expanded my heart to contain more love than I had before. The deeper He goes, the more pleasure I feel.
What’s more, when I look at myself the way Jesus looks at me, I also begin to love myself again.
As I open myself, my life, my angers, fears, inadequacies, my hopes, and hurts to Jesus, I find more and more “the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards me.” I find new mercies. I find my favorite childhood toys on my morning walks with Him. I find $1500 in a desk drawer so I can take a last-minute trip to Venice with Him (call it an anniversary trip). I find a new steadiness in my voice when addressing conflict with His love. I find a renewed joy in poetry that I haven’t felt in years. I find unshakeable peace in His presence. I find forgiveness and new hope for the relationships that hurt me. I find, I find whatever I thought I had lost when I chose to follow Him, and then some.
All I can say is that He is worthy. Jesus is worth it. He’s worth my whole life, and if I had to trade every romance, every accolade and ambition, every dream and subsequent sunrise for the love of Jesus, I would consider it a bargain.
When my best friend talked to me after my baptism seven years ago, she thought I had lost my mind. All I could talk about was God, His Son Jesus, and his word to us. She thought I had gone nuts and been completely brainwashed. A year later, she went nuts, too.
So when Paul says, “These remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love,” he is so right. It is love, God’s love for you, that casts out all fear, including the fear of God: the fear of God’s judgment, the fear of being inadequate, the fear of His rejection. When you know God’s love for you, you can lean back against Him as a bride against her groom as they drive off into their new life together.
Out of the crowds who saw His miracles and the scores of people who followed Him, only one titled himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John made Jesus’s love his whole identity.
So, who is Alysia? Loved by Jesus.
To know me honestly, you’ve gotta start here in Jesus’ love. It’s the only way I recognize myself these days: standing fearlessly joyful in His light, undaunted and unconquered, in awe of God and the Lamb and Their Spirit, which is life itself, the power to differentiate the universe and the power to bind it, binding even the soul to the body. Every day, they invite me into their love, and I become a playmate of the cosmos.
I married Christ seven years ago, died, and was raised with Him. But He has always known me—since before time was in its infancy. And He will always know me even after Goodness and Mercy have run time ragged and the last hours of this oblivious universe spill out into His unyielding light.
If you don’t love Him, you don’t know Him because to know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to love yourself. To love yourself is to humbly accept His word about you, that when He made you, He blessed you and called you good. To experience good is to hear your name called by the Lover of your Soul and to come running.
He and I are running off to Venice and Florence today to celebrate. I’ll be sure to write poems and send pictures.
Here is to seven years of being with my Great Love, my Faithful Love, my Radiant Love. Then, I believed He was worthy of my devotion. Now I know He is.
Sail
I leave you with a loves song this week. This one is called Getting Ready by Maverick City x Upperroom Like the roar of many waters,
Like the sound of rolling thunder,
Hallelujah! Give him glory!
For the marriage of the Lamb is coming!
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