I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
In my current world of rehabbing a 100+ year old house, I’ve been measuring things, a lot. Quarter round, shelving, doors, floorboards, plywood. In my current world, things have three dimensions. I think it’s not coincidental, that Paul uses four dimensions to describe God’s love. That covers everything we know, plus some. I’m not sure which of Paul’s measurements becomes the magical fourth dimension. But from a quick internet search, the fourth dimension is something in the space-time continuum. It’s safe to say it’s something I don’t understand. But God loves me even there.
It’s certainly coincidental that the accompanying reflection for this section of the sequential reading of the Bible is from Madeline L’Engle. In addition to being a worthy theologian, she wrote the novel, “A Wrinkle in Time”, which has something to do with the fourth dimension. Note to self: reread A Wrinkle in Time.
In the reflection, L’Engle writes about her son and his to-be-expected tantrums as a toddler. He’d misbehave, and then run over to his mother. It was as if he was being horrible, knew it, and also knew he needed his mother’s love precisely when he was least lovable. She’d hug him and hold him until the angry beast left and her son was there, reaffirmed of his parent’s love, precisely when he needed it.
She writes that it is the same for her and God, “When I am at my most monstrous, I am most in need of love”. She continues, “I am not lovable when I am enraged, although it is when I most need love”. It’s when she lashes out, shakes her fist, and strikes out in anger and fear that God holds her tight. God loves us even then, even when our monstrous behavior means we are very hard to love.
I am very grateful for her analogy, both because of what it says about God’s love, and about a child’s lashing out. My adult child with the significant brain disorder of schizophrenia frequently lashes out, and is frequently unlovable. At those moments more than any other, we need to hold them, to make sure that they know they’re loved even at their worst. Certainly we fail sometimes as parents to do that, to hug and hold and show love, because we are not the ones with unconditional, irrational love.
But when we cannot show that love, because their behavior is so bad, or we cannot get close enough to the cornered beast they’ve become, I need to do whatever I can to make sure they know that even then, God loves them. God is the one with irrational, unconditional, unwarranted love, both for my loved one and me.
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