November 26, 2001
CYBERCOLUMN:
Epiphany
___By Donna Van Cleve
___I don’t know why I’m even going. So many people will be there—I’m not comfortable around crowds. And then I have to make conversation…and smile, yes, can’t forget that, and remember people’s names. Why do we even have to go? There’s no way we’ll be able to get close to him, and if we did, by some stroke of luck, what in the world would I say? I’d probably just blubber a bit and totally embarrass myself. Besides, why would he even be interested in talking to a nobody like me? He’s famous—everyone seems to think he hung the moon or something. Why would someone who has the world at his feet even want to be around us?
___"All right! All right! I’m coming, but don’t expect me to enjoy myself. You’re all just setting yourselves up for a big disappointment. We probably won’t be able to get anywhere near him…"
DONNA VAN CLEVE
___I knew it. There are so many people here I can hardly move. I think I’ll just hold up the side of this building and wait for my friends.
___ "Go on ahead! I’ll just wait right here… Yes, I’m sure… Good luck! Hope you get close enough to see him!" Yeah, right. It’ll be a miracle if they get within a stone’s throw. Why am I even here? I have better things I could be doing.
___ "HEY, WATCH IT! That’s my foot you’re standing on! Would you please stop pushing me? I really don’t want to be going this way. EXCUSE ME! PARDON ME! HELP!"
___How did I get down here on the ground?
___ "STOP STEPPING ON ME! WOULD SOMEBODY GET ME OUTTA HERE?!?"
___ Hey, why did everyone get so quiet?
___ Gentle hands pulled the young girl up from the maze of feet.
___ "Oh, thank you, sir. I thought I was going to get trampled to death by these lunatics trying to see the star of the show…Look at all this dust on me…cough… How’d you know I was down here? Did you trip over me?"
___ "I heard you call for help."
___ "In this crowd? I don’t see how in the world anyone could’ve heard me. Why isn’t anyone moving anymore?"
___ "Because I’ve stopped moving."
___ The young girl’s eyes widened as realization struck. She gulped an enormous amount of air and couldn’t seem to let it out when she realized to whom she was talking.
___ "You… you’re Him?… Uh… my friends…uh…" she stammered, looking around for her friends, and then in a burst of frustration she wailed, "I knew this would happen!"
___ "What would happen?"
___ "I figured I’d just make a fool of myself if I saw you. I don’t know why you even bothered to stop and help me," she said to her feet.
___ "Look at me."
___ She shook her head at the ground.
___ "Look at me."
___ Timidly she raised her head and looked into the most compassionate and loving eyes she had ever seen. A bolt of lightning coursed through her when she saw that he seemed to recognize her.
___ He knows me, but how could that be? And why does he seem to care about me—a nobody?
___ "I would give my life for you," he answered, knowing her thoughts.
___ "Why?" Astonishment rolled through her being. "They say you are the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Don’t you have a throne to get to or a battle to be fought or something? Why are you talking to me? Why are you even listening to me?" She asked, her eyes now riveted to his face.
___ "I heard you call for help."
___ "But I had no idea it would be you that would hear me."
___ "But you are why I came."
___ Somehow, she believed him. A tidal wave of love swept over her that day, and she knew she would never be the same, nor anyone else whose heart cried out to Jesus.
___And little did the young girl know, she had met the One that actually had hung the moon.
* * *
___It never ceases to amaze me that the God who created the universe would want to have a personal, intimate relationship with me. God’s love is not divided and diminished among the mass of humanity to the point where each of us receives only a distant, microscopic portion of Himself. His love is complete in each of us. You and I have God’s undivided attention at any moment of the day. That truth doesn’t sink in without totally overwhelming me.
___God reaches out to each of us in countless ways to show his love toward us, but how often do we hear folks give luck, fate, chance or coincidence the credit? God has chosen clay pots to house this treasure of love, but He never meant for them to be self-contained. He intends for his love in us to spill over onto others.
___I know the young girl in this story. I’ve experienced the same overwhelming love she experienced in spite of her feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. For too long, I felt like I had to earn God’s love somehow, not realizing there was nothing I could do to make God love me any more or any less than He already did.
___ Amazing.
___Donna Van Cleve is director of the public library in Cotulla, a writer, wife, mother and member of First Baptist Church in Cotulla, where she is pianist.
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