When I Open My Eyes

By Ken Woodley

Many years ago, an anonymous author wrote these words: “Jesus did not come to make God’s love possible, but to make God’s love visible.”
My own experiences have taught me over and over again that those words are true.

But there are times when I need to remind myself that the light of God’s love is not a myth, nor can any words of human theological dogma and doctrine put it on a leash and lead it this way and that.
God’s love runs free.
The darkness of fear and doubt that so often fills the world with turbulent emotions, however, can make it hard for me to fully feel that love.
The darkness can make it hard for me to have faith that even one small flicker of light can feel to my soul like a sunrise of love.
Sometimes it is hard to keep genuinely and actively believing that one small twinkling of light can always lead me back to a truth that, in my life, was born in Bethlehem.
And can do so in the middle of any season and any month or week.
Because every day can be Christmas.
Just as every day can be Easter.
God’s love was always there, but, for me, it took Jesus to break through the darkness and illuminate the truth about the intimacy of that love.
My journey toward and then with Jesus brought that sense of love to me until the feeling was palpable. I was inundated by it. This morning, I experienced a renewed soul-understanding of that fact.
I’ve been going through quite a difficult time lately and the winds, rain, thunder and lightning of that “storm” had, like clouds, obscured my awareness of God’s constant love. I’ve been like a small boat on an angry sea.
Today, just after sunrise, I was overtaken by a feeling or awareness, by a calming presence that reminded me I am loved by God. Not because of any good works I may have done in the past or might do in the future. I am just loved. Unconditionally. I don’t need to hold on to it to keep it from running off. This love is always there.
And certainly not just for me.
No matter who we are, where we live, what we believe or disbelieve, this truth stands, unfaltering:
Jesus carries the light of God’s love into even the deepest, darkest caverns of our lives.
I believe Jesus hoped to change the way all of us think about everything, but especially the way we think about ourselves and God.
He strove to bring us into a personal, loving relationship with God. There are so many times he tried to make that point in the Gospels.
The kingdom of heaven was always around me. But, like so many people in the world, I just never saw it in the blinding darkness.
Until I saw it.
I never felt its reaching touch, my soul’s skin too calloused by the darkness to feel such determined gentleness.
Until I felt it.
God’s love is like an unquenchable light shining in the world—with us and for us all.
The darkness only seems unbeatable when I close my eyes in anxious fear and keep them tightly shut.
When I open them the darkness has no chance.
Because God’s love is all around me.
Just as it is all around you.
There is nothing else any of us can believe that will change that fact.

By Ken Woodley

Many years ago, an anonymous author wrote these words: “Jesus did not come to make God’s love possible, but to make God’s love visible.”
My own experiences have taught me over and over again that those words are true.

But there are times when I need to remind myself that the light of God’s love is not a myth, nor can any words of human theological dogma and doctrine put it on a leash and lead it this way and that.
God’s love runs free.
The darkness of fear and doubt that so often fills the world with turbulent emotions, however, can make it hard for me to fully feel that love.
The darkness can make it hard for me to have faith that even one small flicker of light can feel to my soul like a sunrise of love.
Sometimes it is hard to keep genuinely and actively believing that one small twinkling of light can always lead me back to a truth that, in my life, was born in Bethlehem.
And can do so in the middle of any season and any month or week.
Because every day can be Christmas.
Just as every day can be Easter.
God’s love was always there, but, for me, it took Jesus to break through the darkness and illuminate the truth about the intimacy of that love.
My journey toward and then with Jesus brought that sense of love to me until the feeling was palpable. I was inundated by it. This morning, I experienced a renewed soul-understanding of that fact.
I’ve been going through quite a difficult time lately and the winds, rain, thunder and lightning of that “storm” had, like clouds, obscured my awareness of God’s constant love. I’ve been like a small boat on an angry sea.
Today, just after sunrise, I was overtaken by a feeling or awareness, by a calming presence that reminded me I am loved by God. Not because of any good works I may have done in the past or might do in the future. I am just loved. Unconditionally. I don’t need to hold on to it to keep it from running off. This love is always there.
And certainly not just for me.
No matter who we are, where we live, what we believe or disbelieve, this truth stands, unfaltering:
Jesus carries the light of God’s love into even the deepest, darkest caverns of our lives.
I believe Jesus hoped to change the way all of us think about everything, but especially the way we think about ourselves and God.
He strove to bring us into a personal, loving relationship with God. There are so many times he tried to make that point in the Gospels.
The kingdom of heaven was always around me. But, like so many people in the world, I just never saw it in the blinding darkness.
Until I saw it.
I never felt its reaching touch, my soul’s skin too calloused by the darkness to feel such determined gentleness.
Until I felt it.
God’s love is like an unquenchable light shining in the world—with us and for us all.
The darkness only seems unbeatable when I close my eyes in anxious fear and keep them tightly shut.
When I open them the darkness has no chance.
Because God’s love is all around me.
Just as it is all around you.
There is nothing else any of us can believe that will change that fact.