While I was in Africa last October, I started reading this book of “ancient prayers,” which belonged to a friend and had been passed down from generation to generation. The original copy was written in 1897. I fell in love with so many of the prayers, simply because they spoke to my heart with words that I found difficult to form as an offering up to God. I took pictures with my phone of several that I wanted to re-read, because I figured there was no way I’d EVER find that book. Yet we live in a remarkable age, where the technology makes possible so much. Wouldn’t you know it, a simple search of Amazon and I found a copy…not an “original” print, but a bound photo duplicate of the original.
This week, as I began to summarize my study of what love looks like, and how it needs to be applied to me, I found this short prayer (see above picture) a fitting way to bring some closure. Please read, and possibly re-read several times. I especially loved this line: Melt me with Thy love, that I may be all love…
In my journal, as I wrote that line by hand, and prayed it back to The Lord, I wrote this: Indeed, Lord, melt me with your love until I am just a puddle of Jesus-love. Immediately this picture from recent days came to mind…little grandsons stomping through mud puddles, splashing dirty water all over their clothes, staining them permanently. What a picture…mud puddles are so desirable to little boys. I’ve never met a mud puddle that’s not instantaneously befriended a little boy; and, my wee men even go out of their way to make the path of the puddle their path. Yep, the puddle may get stomped on, but I’ve never heard one complain. In fact, there seems to be great joy in the resulting splash. If puddles could giggle, I imagine they might with every single stomp. Certainly, the boys do.
Being a puddle of love might be a little risky; it might mean a little stomping over/through; but what fun it could be to splash a little Jesus-love, staining the recipient permanently. Yep, that’s a thought! in spite of the risks, that leave me giggling on the inside…it could be pretty fun to be a puddle of Jesus love!