Cherished.

Of babies and rivers, being rescued and adored.

The moment went by too fast, like perfect ones do. I saw her coming toward me on the sidewalk, on a residential street I’d cut through to avoid a traffic snarl. She was young, out for a morning walk, and she had a tiny baby bound to her chest in one of those front-facing, hands-free contraptions meant for multi-tasking. Only she wasn’t striding determinedly toward 10,000 steps with her infant as a weighted vest. She was moving slowly, gazing into her baby’s face, cradling it with both hands, her eyes so full of love my heart hurt.

It was almost too much unexpected tenderness for an ordinary Tuesday. Too lavish a love for public display.

As I drove past them I felt the weight of the moment, as if 10 pounds were strapped to my chest, too, and gazing up at me in wonder.

Maybe you were held like that once. Maybe I was too, but don’t remember. But don’t we long for that?

To be seen? To be cherished? To be openly, unabashedly, unselfconsciously adored in the broad light of day? And don’t we recall, somewhere deep in our bones, how it feels to be cradled in arms that have loved and lifted us far beyond reason or restraint?

This week my heart broke with all of Texas as the Guadalupe River raged over campgrounds and bunkhouses, over RV parks and cabins, carrying away more than 100 precious souls in the dark of night, uprooting in a chaotic hour what took steady centuries to build.

On every media screen searchers searched and rescuers rescued, families and friends prayed for the missing, wept for the lost. But in my mind’s eye I saw this: I saw Jesus, strong and striding through the churning waters, plucking up every child and holding them to his chest, gazing into each sleeping face with a love as strong and incandescent as His own blazing resurrection, carrying them out of the river and on to life.

Then with this the words an old, old hymn came to mind: “Love lifted me! Love lifted me! When nothing else could help, Love lifted me.” I have been seen, loved, cherished, rescued. So have you. So have they.

Love has lifted us safe into His everlasting arms.

Mighty waters cannot extinguish love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.

Song of Solomon 8:7

My apologies, friends, for not getting this out to you on Wednesday. It’s been a week for us all. I’m on vacation now and will be back with you on Wednesday, June 23. Much love till then. Leigh