by Emily Conrad

The air glitters this morning.

The micro-snowflakes may be frost detaching from the bare trees and black roofs. Or perhaps they’ve blown in from some far-off cloud to revel in the sunshine here. Whatever their origin, they catch the sun and flash, so light gravity writes them off.

The glittering air is filled with something other than snowflakes, however.

It’s filled with love. Not the love of men or women, but the love of God.

Perhaps it’s the trite ring of statements like that which has allowed me to gloss over and leave largely unexplored this mystery of the ages.

But the more I study it, the less trite the love of God becomes.
A few months ago, hoping to internalize more understanding of God’s love, I set out to memorize Psalm 103.

Verses 11 and 12 read: For as the skies are high above the earth,
so his loyal love towers over his faithful followers.
As far as the eastern horizon is from the west,
so he removes the guilt of our rebellious actions from us. (NET)

Each time I came to those verses, my voice got stronger and I had this urge to lift my arms way up in the air for “as the skies are high above the earth” and then to spread my hands as far from each other as possible for “as far as the eastern horizon is from the west.”

His love is as high as the sky, His forgiveness as wide as the world.

I looked up the word translated “skies” to find out if this meant the blue skies we see during the day or if it included the farther-off stretches we see in the night sky.

My concordance assures me that it does include the space beyond our immediate atmosphere.

God’s love towers as high as the heavens.

I imagine the air from the ground at my feet to the edge of our atmosphere and, beyond that, the vacuum of space glittering with God’s love for me.

I stand at the edge of a frozen lake and gaze at the distant shore, the horizon beyond it where the sun is rising. All this air. All this love. All this forgiveness. Lavished on me, on you.

Has Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 been answered? Do I now understand the height and depth and width and breadth of the love of God?

No, not yet, but this is a step in the right direction, and one I hope you’ll take, too.

If you’re struggling to grasp more of the love of God, consider committing a Bible passage on the topic to memory. Psalm 103 isn’t a bad place to start, but there are many, many other excellent passages.

Turning the phrases over in my mind throughout weeks it took to memorize the passage kept the truths at the forefront of my thoughts, making it easier for me to notice when God nudged me to say, “See, this is what I’m talking about.”

The exercise of memorizing the Psalm also played a big contributing role in “31 and Falling,” the free short story I released this month. If you haven’t read it yet but would enjoy a Valentine story that revolves around this Psalm, I hope you’ll check it out!

One week ago Thursday, we did a giveaway in conjunction with Charissa Steyn’s interview post. I’m happy to announce that the randomly selected winner is Robyn Hook!

If you missed the giveaway, you’ll still have three other chances to win one of the lovely 40 Days of Love Letters journals from Charissa of Art of Adventure. Two will be given away to those who are subscribed to my email lists when I randomly pick winners on 3/1. One other journal will be given away at some point this month to someone who comments on a post, so watch the series for that opportunity!

What Bible passage has helped you to better understand the wholehearted, all-out, never-give-up love God has for you?

PS – This post is part of the Indivisible series. To get more info about the series, guest writers, giveaways, and the free short story, check out the first post here. New posts will be going up each Tuesday and Thursday through February. As they’re added, you’ll be able to read them all here.