Love Song Grace

Jeremiah 31:3 -- "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness."

We must have looked quite the sight - all four of us huddled over the freshly cleaned glass on top of the fifty year old pin-ball machine - faces lit up with the warm yellow glow of aged filament charged with good 'ole fashioned AC current. [nothing florescent and green about this machine...]

When my husband, Steven, first found the abandoned thing it was covered in dust, very scratched and some of the fuses had blown. The previous owner tried to bypass investing  in a twenty-cent fuse by wrapping a couple of them in aluminum foil. NOT good for the machine....but I guess it got the job done.

No question -- the thing needed some TLC. But Steven knew a diamond in the rough when he saw one and made a B-Line for the nice lady at the front of the antique store manning the cash register, his eyes big and shiny like a kid in a candy store. He has always wanted a pin-ball machine. But even the ones that have yet to be refurbished and restored can cost an arm and a leg. When he returned with the price - his eyes were even bigger - and I kid you not - he all but jumped up and down right there in the middle of all those old previously owned treasures. He was finally a pin-ball machine owner.  And not one of those new-fangled digital ones, either - but a bonafied Gotlieb from 1966 with a manual ball feed and two million feet of electrical wiring tangled around it's innards.

Joy upon joy - the four of us in this Dalton gang were watching the machine perform - bells dinging, score-board all lit up and metal balls bouncing off cracked and yellowed bumpers. You should have seen Steven's excitement when he found the replacement rubber kit and light bulbs and changed each of the old ones out with the care and concentration of a surgeon. Sheer perfection!

Like I said -- a little TLC. It now works like a dream -- HIS dream and he's as giddy as the family cats that jump on the thing when they hear it plugged in....ever ready to try to pounce on the ball through the glass.

This particular project of his - the time, the effort, the patience ... made me think back sixteen years to another project of his that required time, effort, and the patience of Job. Reading Jeremiah 31:3 this morning brought it all back....and inspired an entry in my thankful journal.

I had been a divorced/single Mom for going on three years when I moved back down to Florida from Nashville, Tennessee way back in 1996. I was a broken Christian -- and didn't care one iota for even LOOKING into another romantic entanglement [at least, not a REAL one -- going out to dinner occasionally was fine]. But Steven -- well, like our Pastor says when asked how he's managed a successful marriage for so long -- he just kept showing up. My determination to refuse a date did not move him in the least.  He would come over and play hot-wheels with my toddler. He would drive me to work - carpooling in the "interest of saving gas" - he offered to take me to the beach to see a meteor shower "to take a break from being a stressed out single mother"..... he very literally drew me with unfailing kindness. He later told me that he'd loved me since we met in 1990 - WAY before I ever moved to Tennessee and made my poor decision to marry without God's approval. Before I had Brian. Before the divorce and consequent move back down to the Sunshine State.  And all those years -- all the things that transpired within them - didn't matter a lick to Steven.  He told me once that -- he knew what God wanted for him, he knew me the minute I walked through the door of our Sunday School class as a brand new church member straight off the mission field - and he didn't see the point in wasting anybody's time by going out with the wrong people. He said it would be waste of their time - these would-be-suitors - and a waste of his. .... so he waited....and waited.....and waited. AND....even that truth that a date with a single Mom often feels more like a job interview than an opportunity to spend time cultivating a romantic relationship....Steven kept showing up. Then - FINALLY [his finally] - in early 1997 - he asked me to set the date. I couldn't say no.  I didn't want to say no.  He loved me with an unfailing love and drew me with immeasurable kindness.

This man has a wonderful way of showing me the kind of love God has for us. And just like the joy and excitement over taking a fifty year old pin-ball machine and transforming it, healing it, coaxing it back to life to sparkle and ding again -- I was granted the joy of that elusive sparkle and fire-cracker pop when a girl is swept off her feet after a life-time of dreaming and hoping that one day the REAL Mr. Right will come along.

God does this. God sees what generations upon generations of sin and self-centeredness have done to His creation and waits, ever at the ready  with open arms, to coax us back to life, back to joy, back to hope that shines and dings clear and pure. There is no love as everlasting as His. No kindness as unfailing as our Fathers. ...and yet, we find ourselves, often -- running away from it. Hiding in the back of the antique store with a dingy tarp haphazardly draped over us - embarrassed by the scratches, the dents and peeling paint -- afraid that accepting this wonderful grace and love will....what? Hurt? Be too difficult? Be more than we deserve?

Perhaps....it might some of those things. But -- it will DEFINITELY be joy. It will, beyond a doubt, be restoration. Renewal. Think about the words Jeremiah uses......EVERLASTING -- UNFAILING. What more hope and happiness could anyone want?