Let Love Take Possession
by: Jon Crane

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 2, No. 13 (July 3, 1999)

As I read Amy Carmichael's quotation before choosing it for a daily Angel Friends' post, the word that struck me was "resist." It amazed me. With just a little reflection is was easy to see how much of my life has been spent wanting God to come into my heart but at the same time resisting Him.

Often, for example, when praying from the Liturgy of the Hours or trying to say a simple "Our Father," I've been frustrated because I just didn't have the right frame of mind. Or, more often, I'd start praying only to find my thoughts had drifted elsewhere at some point. I would immediately begin the prayer over, and repeat it as many times as I could till I was sure it was a perfect, distraction-free recitation.

There have been (and truth be told, still are) many times I've looked at a written prayer and decided to postpone saying it because I wasn't in the right frame of mind. Even in the pits of despair after Lana's death, there were times when I fought hard to achieve that "frame of mind" to pray for her soul, the children or my own pain. If I just wanted to talk to God, converse with Him, as a prayer, I'd feel it a failure unless I could perceive some connection with Him during the course of the prayer. This is nothing but resistance.

"He is willing, as light is willing to flood a room that is opened to its brightness." The key here is that it doesn't happen in the mind. It is the heart that must open to Him to be "instantly" flooded with His love.

I have to admit as someone who has tended to live most of his life inside his head, this is a difficult thing for me. For years I looked, unsuccessfully for the most part, for the key to open my heart to Him. But like the song says, "I've been looking for love in all the wrong places." That key, as Amy Carmichael has so simply but eloquently said is "cease to resist."

Let the heart be opened to a kindness from a friend or stranger, a child's laughter, a quiet moment of peace, or a flower bud opening in the garden. See these as God working His love and wonders in this world. Open yourself to it and watch as your heart becomes flooded with the light of His grace and love. Take a moment and give some of that love to a friend or a stranger and watch as His light shines through you making the world a little brighter, a little better.

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