THE NIGHT WE MET | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: THE NIGHT WE MET | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jim Newton
10/11/15
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The night we met, I was certain that I would join your fold. You were so kind, so loving. Upon first seeing you, our eyes immediately became locked in an embrace that was unshakable. Silly as it may sound, my heart became one with yours during that first glance that developed into a stare, a stare between two people who truly love one another. I remember how I shyly shuffled around the periphery, all the while keeping my eyes locked with your soft and loving eyes. My ears streamed your every word into a mind that devoured and constantly replayed them. My insatiable appetite for your presence had to be addressed lest I face the possibility of death. Surely, he is looking at someone else, I thought. No - though you mixed and spoke with the others in the room, your manner and looks sent a message to me that your attention was directed at me.

Slowly mixing in with my thoughts was the realization that I was beginning to swoon. The cause of this swoon was the sight of you making your way toward me. Why, my heart said, would you be interested in me? I am so plain - so worthless. Are you blind, I laughed, nervously?

It was at this point in your approach that I began worrying and asking myself questions. Am I dressed properly? Will my pitiful conversation drive you away? Will you think me presumptuous if I say that I love you when we hardly or, to be truthful, don't know one another? Goodness, we were only just meeting? As much as I tried, albeit in a halfhearted manner, to prevent it, my soul was being consumed by your presence as you drew ever closer. Will this be a one-time encounter or a lasting relationship, I interrogated myself? Deep within, I began to sense that I would be irrevocably changed by our chance encounter. I knew that I shouldn't give myself so freely and so unashamedly to a stranger, but my will was being swept off its feet by your oh-so-loving will. To be very candid, that night I would not have been embarrassed had I fallen to the floor at your feet in the midst of all those unaware souls that seemed oblivious to the event taking place in their fold before their very eyes.

Many are the years that have come and gone since that first meeting. I have loved you without pause, and your love flows without restriction to me in spite of my shortcomings. Without fail, anytime I have fallen, you were right there to raise me back to my feet, dust me off, and make sure I had not been seriously harmed. You make loving and serving you so easy and enjoyable. Always shocked is the description of myself when you unassumingly make sure that at harvest my pantry is overflowing even though my labor is along the lines of minimal and undeserving.

Entering into my golden years, I lean on you all the more and can do so little in return. Oh - that I could have known and served you at a much earlier point in my life when I had limitless energy and all the fire of youth. But you never complain nor penalize me.
Your love and strength have carried me through times that would have been my destruction without them. Many were the times that I faltered under the weight of the important burden you trustingly put upon me. Always, you calmly solved the problem by strengthening my back and letting me lean on you till I had regained my composure and courage. Often, I grumbled about the weight. Grumbled that is until I recalled the burden you had carried willingly and without complaint.

Why can't I be more like you? Why am I so feeble, so lamenting, so unable to live up to your example? But you never hold that against me. You just smile and hug me lovingly and tell me everything is going to be just fine. Will I ever get it right?

I am uncomfortable whenever I consider how different my life would have been had we not met that night and had I not joined your fold. But you had written that chapter into my life long before time began, in the beginning. I love you, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Thank you for you and for that act of never-to-be-surpassed love that took place on that cross.

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