"If" by Amy Carmichael

Lilyjoy555

There are times when something comes into our lives which is charged with love in such a way that it seems to open the Eternal to us for a moment, or at least some of the Eternal things, and the greatest of these is love. It may be a small and intimate touch upon us or our affairs, light as the touch of the dawn-wind on the leaves of the tree, something not to be captured and told to another in words. But we know that it is our Lord. And then perhaps the room where we are, with its furniture and books and flowers, seems less “ present” than His Presence, and the heart is drawn into the sweetness of which the old hymn sings. The love of Jesus what it is None but His loved ones know. Or it is the dear human love about us that bathes us as in summer seas and rests us through and through. Can we ever cease to wonder at the love of our companions? And then suddenly we recognize our Lord in them. It is his love that they lavish on us. O love of God make manifest in Thy lovers, we worship thee. Or (not often, perhaps, for dimness seems to be more wholesome for us here, but sometimes, because our Lord is very merciful) it is given to us to look up through the blue air and see the love of God. And yet, after all, how little we see! “That you may be able to comprehend what is breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge “—the words are to great for us. What do we comprehend, what do we know? Confounded and abased, we enter into the Rock and hide us in the dust before the glory of the Majesty of love-the love whose symbol is the Cross. And a question pieces then: what do I know of Calvary love?