are you lost or incomplete?

"Living in the wisdom of accepted tenderness means receiving each moment as an end in itself…

It simply lets us live in trust, transparency, and compassion…

The experience of God’s Spirit as tenderness was mirrored to me quite unobtrusively at a couple’s forty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration. The husband had quietly withdrawn sometime during the festivities, and I found them quite by accident. I wasn’t looking for them as I passed a sheltered alcove, nor was I eavesdropping—but I was mesmerized by what I saw. There they were, sitting on a loveseat with an overhead light shining indirectly on the man’s face. He stared intently at his spouse—that woman about whom he knew everything there was to know: her strengths and weaknesses, her occasional moodiness and temper tantrums, her sense of humor and sense of insecurity, her nagging and her magnanimity. Nothing remained hidden.

The expression in the man’s eyes conveyed warmth, tenderness, and the same compassion she had shown him during his struggles with John Barleycorn. Not a word was exchanged. She sighed as tears slid down her cheeks. They embraced.

The spirituality of accepted tenderness brings a gathering awareness of the loving gaze of the Abba of Jesus with all the above qualities infinitely magnified, and thus it enables us to be alone with God in the midst of the most diverse activities. It allows an unpretentious presence to the present moment without manuals and mirrors, goals and game plans, stress or distress. It simply rejoiced in the gift. And this spirituality is all the work of the Spirit defined as “given tenderness.”

This tenderness also encompasses an unspoken assurance that Jesus will provide the grace for the next step on the spiritual journey. Charles de Foucauld, a desert hermit and an inspiration for a community known as the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote, “The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything.” His unflinching trust in the love of God morphed into humble confidence that the grace for the next step in the dance of life was already there, given. Without anxiety, Abba’s children move forward, knowing that the next and the next and the next steps will take care of themselves. Abba’s children don’t worry about tomorrow or even late this afternoon…

I’m amazed at how long it’s taken me to learn this and appalled at how quickly (and often) I forget it…During those transitional years, I didn’t understand that God’s grace always precedes his call…Living in the wisdom of tenderness is an unending adventure in trust and dependence.”

- The Wisdom of Tenderness, Brennan Manning

Fully accepted for who I am. I long for this. I think we all long for this.

I’m coming to grips with this is how God loves us and longs to love us. He is our intimate lover. Yet he also chooses to mirror this love with giving us wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends here on earth so we get the picture. As of late, God has been desiring to be this for me more and more. I feel I'm getting to know God as Father in a way I never knew possible and in a way that is bringing full acceptance, full belonging, being fully known and fully loved and fully complete in Him.