The Closest We Come to Seeing the Face of God

This past weekend, our youngest daughter had a softball tournament at the beach. Being Memorial Day weekend and everyone having Monday off, we were able to get all the kids together, and our grandpup too, for a much needed weekend away.

These last few weeks have been painful and just really hard, especially on the heart and emotions. So having all the kids under one roof for a few days was heaven for me. I truly believe it was exactly what every single one of us needed.

After Marie’s games, we packed up the car and headed to the beach. Even though the weather wasn’t the greatest, we still made the best of it. That’s honestly our life story. In the middle of the storm, we find our sunshine and rainbows.

It was supposed to storm all weekend, but we lucked out with some sunshine, and some of us even swam in the ocean. Not me, it wasn’t warm enough by the time we got there, but putting my feet in the water, feeling the ocean breeze, hearing the waves just before sundown, while Mark and the kids were being silly with laughter and music in the background… it was all I needed.

As I stood there breathing, thanking God, praying, hoping, and feeling grateful for the moment I was in, I was overcome with both deep joy and deep suffering at the exact same time.

Both.

Deep love.

Deep pain.

I’m not a Bible scholar by any means, but there was a time when I read my Bible daily and went to every Bible study. I still love the Bible, still believe in a higher power that I call God, and still believe deeply in the life and teachings of Jesus. But I’ve also become very critical of the evangelical Christian church.

There were things I was taught that I no longer believe, or maybe never fully believed but never had the courage to say out loud. My faith has evolved.

Honestly, I like myself better now, and in many ways, I feel closer to Jesus than I ever did before.

Anyway, I remembered the teachings about how if you were ever to fully see the face of God, you would die. And I found myself thinking about God passing by me in that moment.

Maybe if we really did see the face of God, we wouldn’t physically die, but it would feel like a kind of death because we would finally see what God sees. We would feel what God feels. We would see ourselves.

We would see each other.

The joy and the suffering all at once. And maybe it’s simply too much for our human bodies and hearts to carry.

As my son walks through cancer, the worry consumes me, even though the type of cancer he has has a 90% cure rate. The hope is there, but so is the fear. Both exist together. And having adult children, and one still a teenager, watching them grow up and begin building lives of their own brings its own kind of joy, worry, grief, and awe at how quickly life moves.

Sometimes that consumes me too.

But so does the love. The joy of being together in a single moment. The gratitude. The laughter. The deep love I have for my husband and children.

And then there’s the sadness of what so many people I love, and so many people in this world, are carrying. Including our family. My son. My children. My husband. My mom. Me. The suffering, and how truly hard life can be, can feel like too much sometimes.

And yet, we keep moving forward, trying to make beauty from ashes.

But what if we allowed ourselves to truly ground ourselves in the love of God and fully see one another? To really see. To feel both the joy and the suffering each person carries. I think it would bring us to our knees.

It would mean loving our neighbor. Taking care of the poor, the hurting, and those on the margins. It would mean seeing humanity the way God sees humanity.

And maybe that’s the closest we ever come to seeing the face of God.

The ocean is my happy place!