40: Who I Really Am

I don't think the "Ransomed Heart" reading that dropped into my email box this morning was a coincidence.

We are not what we were meant to be, and we know it. If, when passing a stranger on the street, we happen to meet eyes, we quickly avert our glance. Cramped into the awkward community of an elevator, we search for something, anything to look at instead of each other. We fear to be seen. But think for a moment about the millions of tourists who visit ancient sites like the Parthenon, the Colosseum, and the Pyramids. Though ravaged by time, the elements, and vandals through the ages, mere shadows of their former glory, these ruins still awe and inspire. Though fallen, their glory cannot be fully extinguished. There is something at once sad and grand about them. And such we are. Abused, neglected, vandalized, fallen-we are still fearful and wonderful. We are, as one theologian put it, "glorious ruins." But unlike those grand monuments, we who are Christ's have been redeemed and are being renewed as Paul said, "day by day," restored in the love of God.

Could it be that we, all of us, the homecoming queens and quarterbacks and the passed over and picked on, really possess hidden greatness? Is there something in us worth fighting over? The fact that we don't see our own glory is part of the tragedy of the Fall; a sort of spiritual amnesia has taken all of us. Our souls were made to live in the Larger Story, but as Chesterton discovered, we have forgotten our part:

We have all read in scientific books, and indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. . . . We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. (Orthodoxy)

(The Sacred Romance , 92, 94 )

I've been pondering these words for more than an hour, and I'm sure I will continue to think about them throughout the day (and probably well beyond), particularly in light of the transformation God is working within me.

Ironically (or maybe not so), last night I caught a "random" phrase from a speaker on the radio. I don't even remember the topic of the talk, but the phrase that jumped out at me was, "Grace always invites connection." These two messages seem to fit together in an almost divine sort of way, like two pieces of the same present hidden in different places for me to find and connect. The resulting message for my heart is what I will be working on wording today.